“Now see,” she continued, straightening herself and distributing wide breezes from an enormous fan. “See how little jealous I am. Every evening while I am away, Jenny is to dine with you.”
“You don’t mean that you asked her!”
“I did then, and she said she would like nothing better.”
“But won’t the servants think it odd?”
Mrs. Nevius gave him a curious, investigating look.
“What are the servants’ thoughts to you?”
“Nothing. It was Jenny I was considering.”
“She cares as little as you do. If I ask her, who is to object?”
“Not I, certainly. Jenny is very sweet, I am very fond of her, and if she comes I shall take it as very kind of her, but she is not you. It is you I want.”
He leaned forward; there was a light in his eyes which she saw and recognized, but before he could reach her she was on her feet.
“There, Carol, behave. I am tired, and besides, anyone would think we were on our honeymoon still.”
III
“This is really delightful of you. I had hardly ventured to hope—”
“If you are going to be formal, Carol, I won’t stay.”
Miss Adulam, preceded by Michette, was entering the drawing room. Such outer wraps as she may have worn had been laid aside, but her frock, cut sufficiently low in the neck to be suitable for evening wear, had none of the insignia of festival.
And now, as she stood holding a hand to him, there was about her a little simple air of dignity which a princess might seek and got not.
“I won’t be called formal. I am not formal.” And Nevius, raising the hand, touched the wrist with his lips.
From between the curtains at the end of the room a servant appeared, annunciant of dinner.
“But it is good of you,” he continued. “It is worth while to be a bachelor to have such compensation as this.”
Miss Adulam withdrew the hand.
“If Hilda had not insisted I should not be here,” she said; “but she has been so good to me that it seemed stupid to refuse, particularly as it appeared, sir, that if I had, you would not have let her go.”
“Aha! I’m a tyrant now, am I? All the same, Miss, I wish you would try to imply that you are here just a little for me.”
“But I am,” the girl exclaimed. “Really I am. If I were not very fond of you do you suppose I should be here at all?”
“There, that’s something like, that’s my dear old Jenny. Now let’s go in and see what we are to have to eat. But afterward you must play. When I was younger, oh! ever so much younger, I swore a great oath that I would never marry a girl that did not. And Hilda, who did play at the time, has not touched a piano since. Her hand is no longer big enough for the octaves, if you please. That’s the way we men get cheated. There!”
Nevius had seated his guest and taken the seat at her side.
“Put my things here,” he called to the servant, for his place had been arranged at the other end. “And what is there to drink? Champagne and claret? No, I want moselle and seltzer. Serve the champagne to Miss Adulam. You won’t have claret, will you? By George, I believe these are Mumford coves. I take that as being very thoughtful of Hilda. Maintenant,” he added with just a glance to where the servant stood. “Causons. Et nos amours?”
“That’s hardly the expression, is it?” The girl answered in French. “But after all he is so nice that call it what you like.”
“He’s a deuced lucky fellow, that’s all I have got to say about him.”
“Not so lucky, Carol. Not a penny, not one.”
“And what of it? When I married I hadn’t a penny either. But it’s idiocy of him to stick in Texas. He won’t make anything in cattle. That day has gone. This is the era of syndicates and New York is their home. Make him come back, Jenny. I can put him up to any number of things. Nevius and Tredegar! How does that sound?”
“Beautifully, Carol. But Jack won’t do it. You know how obstinate he is; once an idea in his head and only a surgical operation could get it out.”
“And his heart?”
Miss Adulam smiled demurely.
“Anyway,” Nevius persisted, “you have something of your own.”
“Eventually I shall have something; a hundred thousand, perhaps, but not more.”
“But that’s very neat. You could live comfortably on it in Paris and luxuriously in Florence. Of course it’s not much here, and nothing at all in London. And you wouldn’t care to live anywhere else, would you? After all, New York would be a mighty nice place, if it were not for the New Yorkers. Don’t you think so?”
“Here,” he called in English to the servant. “Give Miss Adulam some more champagne, and I want some more seltzer. What is there after this? Quails? I hate quails. Never have them again.”
He turned to the girl.
“Does he write often?”
“Who? Jack? Every day.”
“And what does he say?”
“Mais, Monsieur, vous me demandez des choses!”
“I didn’t mean that.” And Nevius shook with laughter. “Though I can fancy, of course,” he added after a pause, which he purposely made significant.
“You are very impertinent, sir, and I am going home.”
“Yes, of course. And that is just the odd thing; it is always an impertinence to divine a woman’s thoughts. Her wishes passe encore.”
“Why, aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” and the girl turned on him a look which was meant to be quite severe yet was not. “I am afraid Alphabet Jones is corrupting your good manners.”
“Do you know, Hilda said something of the sort last night. By the way, she intimated the other evening that
