Part 30 (1/2)
There is a solemnity about the repast that strikes but fails to subdue Molly. It has a contrary effect, making her spirits rise, and creating in her a very mistaken desire for laughter. She is hungry too, and succeeds in eating a good dinner, while altogether she comes to the conclusion that it may not be wholly impossible to put in a very good time at Herst.
Never does she raise her eyes without encountering Philip's dark ones regarding her with the friendliest attention. This also helps to rea.s.sure her. A friend in need is a friend indeed, and this friend is handsome as well as kind, although there is a little something or other, a suppressed vindictiveness, about his expression, that repels her.
She compares him unfavorably with Luttrell, and presently lets her thoughts wander on to the glad fact that to-morrow will see the latter by her side, when indeed she will be in a position to defy fate,--and Marcia. Already she has learned to regard that dark-browed lady with distrust.
”Is any one coming to-morrow?” asks Mr. Amherst, _a propos_ of Molly's reverie.”
”Tedcastle, and Maud Darley.”
”Her husband?”
”I suppose so. Though she did not mention him when writing.”
”Poor Darley!” with a sneer: ”she never does mention him. Any one else?”
”Not to-morrow.”
”I wonder if Luttrell will be much altered,” says Philip; ”browned, I suppose, by India, although his stay there was of the shortest.”
”He is not at all bronzed,” breaks in Molly, quietly.
”You know him?” Marcia asks, in a rather surprised tone, turning toward her.
”Oh, yes, very well,” coloring a little. ”That is, he was staying with us for a short time at Brooklyn.”
”Staying with you?” her grandfather repeats, curiously. It is evidently a matter of wonder with them, her friends.h.i.+p with Tedcastle.
”Yes, he and John, my brother, are old friends. They were at school together, although John is much older, and he says----”
Mr. Amherst coughs, which means he is displeased, and turns his head away. Marcia gives an order to one of the servants in a very distinct tone. Philip smiles at Molly, and Molly, unconscious of offense, is about to return to the charge, and give a lengthened account of her tabooed brother, when luckily she is prevented by a voice from behind her chair, which says:
”Champagne, or Moselle?”
”Champagne,” replies Molly, and forgets her brother for the moment.
”I thought all women were prejudiced in favor of Moselle,” says Philip, addressing her hastily, more from a view to hinder a recurrence to the forbidden topic than from any overweening curiosity to learn her taste in wines. ”Are not you?”
”I am hardly in a position to judge,” frankly, ”as I have never tasted Moselle, and champagne only once. Have I shocked you? Is that a very lowering admission?”
Mr. Amherst coughs again. The corners of Marcia's mouth take a disgusted droop. Philip laughs out loud.
”On the contrary, it is a very refres.h.i.+ng one,” he says, in an interested and deeply amused tone, ”more especially in these degenerate days when most young ladies can tell one to a turn the precise age, price, and retailer of one's wines. May I ask when was this memorable 'once'?”
”At the races at Loaminster. Were you ever there? I persuaded my brother to take me there the spring before last, and he went.”
”We were there that year, with a large party,” says Marcia. ”I do not remember seeing you on the stand.”
”We were not on it. We drove over, John and I and Letty, in the little trap, a Norwegian, and dreadfully shaky it was, but we did not care, and we sat in it all day, and saw everything very well. Then a friend of John's, a man in the Sixty-second, came up, and asked to be introduced to me, and afterward others came, and persuaded us to have luncheon with them in their marquee. It was there,” nodding at Philip, ”I got the champagne. We had great fun, I remember, and altogether it was quite the pleasantest day I ever spent in my life.”