"Wreathe the bowl with flowers of soul."
The suppressed excitement of the afternoon lent an added flush and sparkle to Winifred"s face as she entered the study where her father and Miss Standish were playing chess together after the family dinner.
Self-absorbed as she was at the moment, she found leisure to be struck with the picture of the two sitting there; her father"s head, with its austere profile outlined against the green curtain, which cast softened reflections over his white hair, and Miss Standish, crisp and dainty as a sprig of dried lavender, her gray curls quivering with the excitement, and her white hands hovering anxiously over rooks and p.a.w.ns.
Miss Standish looked up as Winifred came in, radiant in her new evening gown, for she was to dine with the Hartington Grahams, who had recently returned from England and opened their town house for the season.
"I thought it was to be a _little_ dinner," said Miss Standish, looking with some disapproval at the bare shoulders rising above the billowy ruffles of rose-colored chiffon.
"It is--"just a small affair," Mrs. Graham wrote me. Besides, it is too early in the season for anything formal. In fact, she would hardly ask her most fashionable friends at this time of year. But she must get round somehow," Winifred finished with a little laugh.
"In Boston," said Miss Standish, "you would be overdoing it to wear that kind of a gown to such an affair, but here people seem to have no sense of gradation. They take literally Longfellow"s advice to the young poet seeking success: "Do your best every time.""
"I don"t see," said Winifred, "why the advice is not just as good for dress as for poetry,--except that gowns wear out and poems don"t. Is the carriage there, McGregor, and Maria ready? Well, good-night, Papa; look out for your queen, and don"t let Miss Standish checkmate you with any of her Boston tricks!"
"I think," Jimmy called out after her from the corner of the big sofa, where he lay curled up like a dormouse, "if you would do your best on _my_ dress, instead of making me wear this old suit, it would strike a better average in the family."
As McGregor closed the carriage door, Winifred was conscious of a certain satisfaction that she was not to spend the evening at home with the family. Her restlessness craved a vent, and she wanted to postpone =all= opportunity for reflection.
There was something about the Grahams which always appealed to the girl. Their environment suited her aesthetically. For themselves,--why, one could not have everything--and then they were never alone.
The carriage stopped before Mrs. Graham"s house, and the door opened almost before she had mounted the steps.
As she pa.s.sed along the hall, a wave of fragrance from lavishly disposed flowers floated out to her through the drawn portieres, and she caught a glimpse of the softened light of many lamps-shaded to the eye but festive to the fancy. "Decidedly," thought Winifred, "it is agreeable to be rich, and next to being rich one"s self, the best thing is to a.s.sociate with rich people. Money is such a smoother of rough ways! and then the vast opportunities of being nice to other people that come of a purse at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathize." She smiled to herself at her bold adaptation of the poet"s sentiments, and mounted the stairs with a quickened step, reflecting suddenly that she had not marked the time accurately and might be late. Her glance in at the door of the dressing-room rea.s.sured her. At least she was not the last, for in front of the mirror stood a portly, bediamonded dame, gazing intently into the gla.s.s and putting the last touches to her toilet with stolid equanimity.
"Want to come here?" she asked, pausing in her elaboration of her water-waves, and nodding affably to Winifred.
"No, =I= thank you," Winifred answered, seating herself in the low easy-chair, while the maid pulled off her velvet overshoes.
"Chilly to-night, isn"t it?" the lady continued pleasantly, desirous of putting the new-comer at her ease.
Winifred acquiesced in the views of the weather expressed, and a hint of the chilliness seemed to have crept into the interior. Her agreeable antic.i.p.ations of the evening were vaguely dampened, and she could not quite forgive the innocent cause. "Why will women with red necks wear light blue and diamonds!" she wondered, "and what can reconcile her to looking in the gla.s.s?"
With a little shake of the head to make sure that her hairpins were firmly anch.o.r.ed, and a futile effort to smooth the rebellious curls at her neck, Winifred glided past the lady in front of the mirror, who seemed no nearer the completion of her toilet than when she had entered. At the door of the rear room stood a short, bald-headed man with a patient expression on his face, as of one who had spent a large share of his life waiting for his wife. He glanced with some surprise at the swift reappearance of the girl whom he had watched as she came up the stairs so short a time before.
"That girl beats the ticker," he said to himself as she pa.s.sed him; "she"ll make some man happy if she keeps it up."
The clock was striking eight as Winifred entered the drawing-room. "It is quite a feat to be on time in this city of long distances," said her hostess.
"How delightful to be appreciated!" responded Winifred, with a brilliant smile. "I was just pluming myself on being so prompt, but I see the others are still more so." Here she swept a rapid glance over a seated group at the other end of the room.
"I suppose it is hardly more prompt to be too early than too late, so you are still ent.i.tled to the palm."
The voice which came from close beside her drew the blood to her cheek; but as the words went on, her nervous tremor subdued itself, for the tone said to her as clearly as words, "Everything is to be ignored. We are on the social stage, and must play our parts. You may trust me."
Winifred felt a wave of relief sweep over her. She thanked the speaker with her eyes. To her hostess she said lightly, "Mr. Flint is as much of a purist as ever--no; don"t leave us together. He and I have been quarrelling over the tea-cups this afternoon. I will let you take up the defence, while I go over to speak to your sister, Miss Wabash, in the corner--and isn"t that Captain Blathwayt with her?"
"Yes, he crossed with us on the "Lucania"; remembered meeting you in Cheyenne or some other outlandish Western town--thinks you the most charming American he ever met."
"How clever of you!" said Winifred over her shoulder, as she moved away. "Reflected flattery is the most alluring kind."
As Mrs. Graham turned to greet two newcomers, Flint was left alone, with no hindrance to the occupation of watching Winifred Anstice. She stood with her back toward him and her head slightly turned, so that his eye took in the delicate line of cheek and chin, broken by the shadows of a dimple, the curve of the neck, and the soft little curls that nestled at the base of the hair. A woman is always much handsomer or much plainer than usual in evening dress.
As Flint looked at Winifred, he felt an absurd jealousy of the monocled Englishman who presumed to show his admiration so plainly.
His reflections were ended for the time being by the voice of his hostess saying, "Will you take my sister in to dinner?" As he moved across the room, Winifred and Captain Blathwayt pa.s.sed out together, just ahead of Miss Wabash and himself. He scarcely knew whether to feel regret or relief to find that the width of the table was to be between him and Winifred. It certainly had the advantage of shutting off all necessity for the conversation _farcie_ of the conventional dinner, which he felt would be an impossibility between him and her to-night.
With Miss Wabash the _vol-au-vent_ of talk seemed the most natural thing; and Flint dashed at once into a jesting, somewhat daring tone, which she took quite in good part, and when her attention was claimed by the bald-headed broker on the other side, his neighbor on the left, a double-chinned dowager, with a pearl necklace half hidden in the creases of her neck and a diamond aigrette in her hair, proved no less garrulous if somewhat less sprightly.
She had much to tell of the loss of her diamonds by a burglary last week, and of their recovery through the agency of detectives whose charges were exorbitant. She acquainted Flint with every detail of the conduct of the family and the servants, the police and the detectives. As she went on, people began to listen, and the talk around the table, which had lagged a little, started up more briskly than before.
"I have noticed," said Winifred to Captain Blathwayt, "that there are two subjects which will make even dull people lively,--burglaries and mind-cure."
"Aw, I don"t know much about burglaries,--never had one in the family; but I think a lot about mind-cure and all that sort of thing."
"Confirmation of my theory!" said Winifred, with an impertinence which felt safe in banking on the lack of perception in the person whose dignity was a.s.sailed.
"Do you believe in the mind-cure?" asked Miss Wabash, who had caught the phrase across the table.
"It depends on the mind," Flint answered.
"Oh, no, it doesn"t; not at all. That"s the first principle of the science. You only need to resign yourself and let the influence flow over you."
"Does it make any difference whose influence it is?"
"Oh, I suppose so. It must be trained influence, and it seems to work better when it is paid for."
"Most things do," observed Flint.
"My cousin says--"
Flint never knew exactly what Miss Wabash"s cousin did say, for at that point in the conversation his attention was irresistibly attracted by the talk of his opposite neighbors.
"Now there"s a lot in it, I"m sure," the man of the monocle was saying, bending toward Winifred with what Flint considered objectionable propinquity,--"telepathy, don"t you know, and--and all that sort of thing. I had no idea I was to meet you to-night, but as I was standing on the doorstep I remembered how you looked at that dinner out in Cheyenne, and a remark you made to me--do you recollect?"
"The dinner, perfectly; the remark, not at all."
"Well, I sha"n"t repeat it, for it was deucedly severe on the English.
Really, you know, we"re not half bad; but you don"t care for your cousins over the water, I am afraid. Do you?"
"I think the cousins over the water are much like those on this side,--the relationship is simply an opportunity for intimate acquaintance. Some Englishmen are the most charming of their s.e.x; others are--well, quite the reverse."
"To which do _I_ belong?" asked the Captain, turning toward her more openly and leaving his terrapin untasted, which meant much with Blathwayt.
"Can you doubt?" Winifred responded with a radiant but wholly non-committal smile. Self-possessed as she was outwardly, however, she felt Flint"s eyes upon her, and experienced a sense of annoyance at the att.i.tude of both men.
Her host on the other side came to her relief at the moment.
"Blathwayt," he said, leaning over, "you must try this wine. It is some my wine-merchant in Paris sent over ten years ago,--a special vintage,--and don"t let the terrapin go by, for there"s nothing else worth while before the canvas-backs. I"ll let you into the secret too, Miss Anstice," he added with an expression closely approaching a wink.