Part 24 (1/2)

”Oh, isn't this the right implement?” queried Mr. Brown, contemplating his spoon. ”Well, if you ask ME, I'm glad you started off with it--this soupy stuff'd be the mischief to get away with with a fork.”

Archibald Chesney wouldn't have talked that way. But, nevertheless, Missy let her eyelids lift up at him in a smile.

”I'm glad you didn't know it was a mistake,” she murmured. ”I was TERRIBLY mortified.”

”Girls are funny,” Mr. Brown replied to that. ”Always worrying over nothing.” He returned her smile. ”But YOU needn't ever worry.”

What did he mean by that? But something in his dark eyes, gazing at her full, kept Missy from asking the question, made her swiftly lower her lashes.

”I bet YOU could start eating with a toothpick and get away with it,” he went on.

Did he mean her social savoir-faire--or did he mean--

Just then the butler appeared at her left hand to remove the c.o.c.ktail course. She felt emboldened to remark, with an air of ease:

”Oh, Saunders, don't forget to lay the spoons when you serve the demi-ta.s.ses.”

Mr. Brown laughed.

”Oh, say!” he chortled, ”you ARE funny when you hand out that highfalutin stuff!”

No; he surely hadn't meant admiration for her savoir-faire; yet, for some reason, Missy didn't feel disappointed. She blushed, and found it entrancingly difficult to lift her eyelids.

The function, rather stiffly and quite impressively, continued its way without further contretemps. It was, according to the most aristocratic standards, highly successful. To be sure, after the guests had filed solemnly from the table and began to dance on the porches, something of the empress.e.m.e.nt died away; but Missy was finding Mr. Brown too good a dancer to remember to be critical. She forgot altogether, now, to compare him with the admired Archibald.

Missy danced with Mr. Brown so much that Raymond Bonner grew openly sulky. Missy liked Raymond, and she was sure she would never want to do anything unkind--yet why, at the obvious ill temper of Raymond Bonner, did she feel a strange little delicious thrill?

Oh, she was having a glorious time!

Once she ran across father, lurking un.o.btrusively in a shadowed corner.

”Well,” he remarked, ”I see that Missy's come back for a breathing-spell.”

Just what did father mean by that?

But she was having too good a time to wonder long. Too good a time to remember whether or not it was in the baronial spirit. She was entirely uncritical when, the time for good nights finally at hand, Mr. Brown said to her:

”Well, a fine time was had by all! I guess I don't have to tell YOU that--what?”

Archibald Chesney would never have put it that way. Yet Missy, with Mr.

Brown's eyes upon her in an openly admiring gaze, wouldn't have had him changed one bit.

But, when at last sleep came to her in her little white bed, on the silvery tide of the moon, it carried a dream to slip up under the tight-closed eyes...

The ball is at its height. The door of the conservatory opens and a fair young creature steals in. She is fairer than the flowers themselves as, with a pretty consciousness of her own grace, she advances into the bower. Her throat is fair and rounded under the diamonds that are no brighter than her own great grey eyes; her nut-brown locks lie in heavy ma.s.ses on her well-shaped head, while across her forehead a few rebellious tresses wantonly wander.

She suddenly sees in the shadows that other figure which has started perceptibly at her entrance; a tall and eminently gloomy figure, with hair of a rare blackness, and eyes dark and insouciant but admiring withal.

With a silken frou-frou she glides toward him, happy and radiant, for she is in her airiest mood tonight.