"I will do her work for her."
"What! can you sew?"
"Where is the sailor that can"t sew?"
"Delightful! Then please to sew these two thick ends together. Here is a large needle."
David whipped out of his pocket a round piece of leather with strings attached, and fastened it to the hollow of his hand.
"What is that?"
"It is a sailor"s thimble." He took the work, held it neatly, and shoved the needle from behind through the thick material. He worked slowly and uncouthly, but with the precision that was a part of his character, and made exact and strong st.i.tches. His task-mistress looked on, and, under the pretense of minute inspection, brought a face that was still arch and pretty unnecessarily close to the marine milliner, in which att.i.tude they were surprised by Mr. Bazalgette, who, having come in through the open folding-doors, stood looking mighty sardonic at them both before they were even aware he was in the room.
Omphale colored faintly, but Hercules gave a cool nod to the newcomer, and st.i.tched on with characteristic zeal and strict attention to the matter in hand.
At this Bazalgette uttered a sort of chuckle, at which Mrs. Bazalgette turned red. David st.i.tched on for the bare life.
"I came to offer to invite you to my study, but--"
"I can"t come just now," said David, bluntly; "I am doing a lady"s work for her."
"So I see," retorted Bazalgette, dryly.
"We all dine with the Hunts but you and Mr. Dodd," said Mrs.
Bazalgette, "so you will be _en tete-a-tete_ all the evening."
"All the better for us both." And with this ingratiating remark Mr.
Bazalgette retired whistling.
Mrs. Bazalgette heaved a gentle sigh: "Pity me, my friend," said she, softly.
"What is the matter?" inquired David, rather bluntly.
"Mr. Bazalgette is so harsh to me--ah!--to me, who longs so for kindness and gentleness that I feel I could give my very soul in exchange for them."
The bait did not take.
"It is only his manner," said David, good-naturedly. "His heart is all right; I never met a better. What sort of a knot is that you are tying? Why, that is a granny"s knot;" and he looked morose, at which she looked amazed; so he softened, and explained to her with benevolence the rationale of a knot. "A knot is a fastening intended to be undone again by fingers, and not to come undone without them.
Accordingly, a knot is no knot at all if it jams or if it slips. A granny"s knot does both; when you want to untie it you must pick at it like taking a nail out of a board, and, for all that, sooner or later it always comes undone of itself; now you look here;" and he took a piece of string out of his pocket, and tied her a sailor"s knot, bidding her observe that she could untie it at once, but it could never come untied of itself. He showed her with this piece of string half a dozen such knots, none of which could either jam or slip.
"Tie me a lover"s knot," suggested the lady, in a whisper.
"Ay! ay!" and he tied her a lover"s knot as imperturbably as he had the reef knot, bowling-knot, fisherman"s bend, etc.
"This is very interesting," said Mrs. Bazalgette, ironically. She thought David might employ a tete-a-tete with a flirt better than this. "What a time Lucy is gone!"
"All the better."
"Why?" and she looked down in mock confusion.
"Because poor Mrs. Wilson will be glad."
Mrs. Bazalgette was piqued at this unexpected answer. "You seem quite captivated with this Mrs. Wilson; it was for her sake you took Lucy to task. Apropos, you need not have scolded her, for she did not know the woman was in the house."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean Lucy was not in the room when Mrs. Wilson was announced. I was, but I did not tell her; the all-important circ.u.mstance had escaped my memory. Where are you running to now?"
"Where? why, to ask her pardon, to be sure."
Mrs. B. [Brute!]
David ran down the stairs to look for Lucy, but he found somebody else instead--his sister Eve, whom the servant had that moment admitted into the hall. It was "Oh, Eve!" and "Oh, David!" directly, and an affectionate embrace.
"You got my letter, David?"
"No."
"Well, then you will before long. I wrote to tell you to look out for me; I had better have brought the letter in my pocket. I didn"t know I was coming till just an hour before I started. Mother insisted on my going to see the last of you. Cousin Mary had invited me to ----, so I shall see you off, Davy dear, after all. I thought I"d just pop in and let you know I was in the neighborhood. Mary and her husband are outside the gate in their four-wheel. I would not let them drive in, because I want to hear your story, and they would have bothered us."
"Eve, dear, I have no good news for you. Your words have come true. I have been perplexed, up and down, hot and cold, till I feel sometimes like going mad. Eve, I cannot fathom her. She is deeper than the ocean, and more changeable. What am I saying? the sea and the wind; they are to be read; they have their signs and their warnings; but she--"
"There! there! that is the old song. I tell you it is only a girl--a creature as shallow as a puddle, and as easy to fathom, as you call it, only men are so stupid, especially boys. Now just you tell me all she has said, all she has done, and all she has looked, and I will turn her inside out like a glove in a minute."
Cheered by this audacious pledge, David pumped upon Eve all that has trickled on my readers, and some minor details besides, and repeated Lucy"s every word, sweet or bitter, and recalled her lightest action--_Meminerunt omnia amantes_--and every now and then he looked sadly into Eve"s keen little face for his doom.
She heard him in silence until the last fatal incident, Lucy"s severity on the lawn. Then she put in a question. "Were those her exact words?"
"Do I ever forget a syllable she says to me?"
"Don"t be angry. I forgot what a ninny she has made of you. Well, David, it is all as plain as my hand. The girl likes you--that is all."
"The girl likes me? What do you mean? How can you say that? What sign of liking is there?"
"There are two. She avoids you, and she has been rude to you."
"And those are signs of liking, are they?" said David, bitterly.
"Why, of course they are, stupid. Tell me, now, does she shun this Captain Keely?"
"Kenealy. No."
"Does she shun Mr. Harvey?"
"Hardie. No."
"Does she shun Mr. Talboys?"
"Oh Eve, you break my heart--no! no! She shuns no one but poor David."