Part 40 (2/2)
”I'm crazy about him! Why, dearie, after _this_--we're--we're almost married! Now watch me show him how deeply I'm offended.”
But when she appeared in the dining-room, late as usual, her frigidity was not especially marked. On the contrary, her face rippled into one smile after another, and seizing Blake by both hands, she danced around him, singing:
”You did it! You did it! You did it! Hurrah for a jolly life in the pest-house!”
Madame La Branche was inclined to be shocked at this behavior, but inasmuch as Papa Montegut was beaming angelically upon the two young people, she allowed herself to be mollified.
”I couldn't believe Vittoria,” Myra Nell told Norvin. ”Don't you know the danger you run?”
Mr. La Branche exclaimed: ”I am desolated at the consequences of my selfishness! I did not sleep a wink. I can never atone.”
”Quite right,” his wife agreed.” You must have been mad, Montegut. It was criminal of you to rush forth and embrace him in that manner.”
”But, delight of my soul, the news he bore! The joy of seeing him! It unmanned me.” The Creole waved his hands wildly, as if at a loss for words.
”Oh, you fibber! Norvin told me he'd never met you,” said Myra Nell.
”Eh! Impossible! We are a.s.sociates in business; business of a most important--But what does that term signify to you, my precious ladybird? Nothing! Enough, then, to say that he saved me from disaster. Naturally I was overjoyed and forgot myself.”
His wife inquired, timidly, ”Have your affairs gone disastrously?”
”Worse than that! Ruin stared us in the face until _he_ came. Our deliverer!”
Blake flushed at this fulsome extravagance, particularly as he saw Myra Nell making faces at him.
”Fortunately everything is arranged now,” he a.s.sured his hostess. But this did not satisfy Miss Warren, who, with apparent innocence, questioned the two men until Papa La Branche began to bog and flounder in his explanations. Fortunately for the men, she was diverted for the moment by discovering that the table was set for only four.
”Oh, we need another place,” she exclaimed, ”for Vittoria!”
The old lady said, quietly: ”No, dear. While we were alone it was permissible, but it is better now in this way.”
Myra Nell's ready acquiescence was a shock to Norvin, arguing, as it did, that these people regarded the Countess Margherita as an employee. Could it be that they were so utterly blind?
He was allowed little time for such thoughts, however, since Myra Nell set herself to the agreeable task of unmasking her lover and confounding Montegut La Branche. But Cousin Althea was not of a suspicious nature, and continued to beam upon her husband, albeit a trifle vaguely. Then when breakfast was out of the way the girl added to Norvin's embarra.s.sment by flirting with him so outrageously that he was glad to flee to Papa Montegut's piquet game.
At the first opportunity he said to Vittoria: ”I feel dreadfully about this. Why, they seem to think you're a--a--servant! It's unbearable!”
”That is part of my work; I am accustomed to it.” She smiled.
”Then you _have_ changed. But if they knew the truth, how differently they'd act!”
”They must never suspect; more depends upon it than you know.”
”I feel horribly guilty, all the same.”
”It can make no difference what they think of me. I'm afraid, however, that you have--made it--difficult for Myra Nell.”
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