Part 43 (1/2)
”Yes.”
”Are you sorry?”
”No; are you?”
”N--no.”
And when Delaven went to look for Evilena to tell her they were to have lunch on the lawn (Mrs. McVeigh had installed him as master of ceremonies for the day), he found her in the coziest, shadiest nook on the veranda, entertaining a sample copy of the enemy, and a.s.suring him that the grey uniforms would be so much more becoming than the blue.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Noon. Colonel McVeigh had been at the Terrace already a half day, and no sign had come from Pierson--no message of any sort. Judithe called Pluto and asked if the mail did not leave soon for down the river, and suggested that when he took it to the office he would ask the man in charge to look carefully lest any letters should have been forgotten from the night before.
”Yes'm, mail go 'bout two hours now,” and he looked up at the clock.
”I go right down ask 'bout any letters done been fo'got. But I don'
reckon any mail to go today; folks all too busy to write lettahs.”
”No; I--I--I will have a letter to go,” and she turned toward the desk. ”How soon will you start?”
”Hour from now,” said Pluto, ”that will catch mail all right;” and with that she must be content. At any other time she would have sent him at once without the excuse of a letter to be mailed. Those easy-going folk who handled the mail might easily have overlooked some message--a delay of twenty-four hours would mean nothing in their sleepy lives. But today she was unmistakably nervous--all the more reason for exceeding care.
She had begun the letter when Colonel McVeigh came for her to go to lunch; she endeavored to make an excuse--she was not at all hungry, really, it appeared but an hour since the breakfast; but perceiving that if she remained he would remain also, she arose, saying she would join their little festival on the lawn long enough for a cup of tea, she had a letter to get ready for the mail within an hour.
She managed to seat herself where she could view the road to the south, but not a horseman or footman turned in at the Terrace gate.
She felt the eyes of Monroe on her; also the eyes of Gertrude Loring.
How much did they know or suspect? She was feverishly gay, though penetrated by the feeling that the suspended sword hung above her.
Pierson's non-appearance might mean many things appalling--and Louise!
All these chaotic thoughts surging through her, and ever beside her the voice of Kenneth McVeigh, not the voice alone, but the eyes, at times appealing, at times dominant, as he met her gaze, and forbade that she be indifferent.
”Why should you starve yourself as well as me?” he asked, softly, when she declined the dishes brought to her, and made pretense of drinking the cup of tea he offered.
”You--starving?” and the slight arching of the dark brows added to the note of question.
”Yes, for a word of hope.”
”Really? and what word do you covet?”
”The one telling me if the Countess Biron's gossip was the only reason you sent me away.”
Mrs. McVeigh looked over at the two, well satisfied that Kenneth was giving attention to her most distinguished guest. Gertrude Loring looked across to the couple on the rustic seat and felt, without hearing, what the tenor of the conversation was. Kenneth McVeigh was wooing a woman who looked at him with slumbrous magnetic eyes and laughed at him. Gertrude envied her the wooing, but hated her for the laughter. All her life Kenneth McVeigh had been her ideal, but to this finished coquette of France he was only the man of the moment, who contributed to her love of power, her amus.e.m.e.nt. For the girl, who was his friend, read clearly the critical, half contemptuous gleams, alternating at times the graciousness of Madame Caron's dark eyes. She glanced at Monroe, and guessed that he was no more pleased than herself at the tete-a-tete there, and that he was quite as watchful.
And the cause of it all met Colonel McVeigh's question with a glance, half alluring, half forbidding, as she sipped the tea and put aside the cup.
”How persistent you are,” she murmured. ”If you adopt the same methods in warfare I do not wonder at your rapid promotions. But I shan't encourage it a moment longer; you have other guests, and I have a letter to write.”
She crossed to Mrs. McVeigh, murmured a few words of excuse, exchanged a smile with Evilena, who declared her a deserter from their ranks, and then moved up the steps to the veranda and pa.s.sed through the open window into the library, pausing for a little backward glance ere she entered; and the people on the lawn who raised their gla.s.ses to her, did not guess that she looked over their heads, scanning the road for the expected messenger.