“Yes,” she returned, gaily; “and my word is forfeit, for where are my five captives! N’importe. I’ll have them to-morrow.”
“To-morrow, at noon, we’ll come here together,” said Harrington.
“Agreed,” she replied. “Punctually, at one o’clock, we’ll be here; and, like two fairy princes, carry off the Ogre’s victim.”
They fell from this into a strain of talk, half-gay, half-serious; and, satisfied that affairs were in a good state at present, returned rapidly to the house.
CHAPTER XV.
WAR AND PEACE.
After the incidents of the evening, it was not a little discomposing to behold, as they did, upon entering the parlor, Mrs. Atkins, Miss Atkins and Julia, together with Fernando Witherlee. The Atkins family had been there for a couple of hours, making a family call. Muriel was a favorite with them, as with everybody, and they saluted her affectionately; she responding with her usual affability. Harrington, too, was politely favored; though Mrs. Atkins (who had been a poor country girl once) and her daughters, also, had their misgivings as to his being of sufficient respectability to deserve the civilities due only to Good Society. But, despite this consideration, no woman could resist the sweet manhood of young Harrington; and so he received from these ladies as much politeness as though he moved, with mutton-chop whiskers and modish clothes, in fashionable circles—which was unfair.
While Muriel was privately explaining matters to her mother, Harrington joined in the conversation, in which all participated, save Wentworth, who was unusually quiet, and sat a little apart, with a cold and reserved air, the result of his feelings for Emily. The conversation, which had been on topics more or less commonplace, and had hovered frequently about, and several times fairly settled on, the charms and graces of Mr. Lafitte, dipped again to that enrapturing theme, by the will of Mrs. Atkins. Miss Atkins, by the way, though still a devotee of the chivalrous son of the sunny South, had suffered some slight abatement of her rapture; having learned, by chance, that Mr. Lafitte was already married.
“Oh, Mr. Harrington,” continued Mrs. Atkins, after much eulogium of the Southern gentleman who had done us the honor of dining with us to-day, “if you could only meet Mr. Lafitte, you would have such different ideas of the Southern gentlemen.”
“Indeed, madam,” replied Harrington, courteously, “I should be sorry to have my ideas of Southern gentlemen changed, for I credit them with many fine and high qualities. Don’t think that I imagine Northerners and Southerners in the absolute colors of good and evil—black and white; all the white on our side, and all the black on theirs.”