When Mrs. Gaston and Miss Trevennon were driving along the avenue next
morning, the former said abruptly, “Why didn’t you tell me of your
cousin’s visit?”
“Oh, I didn’t see you when you came in, you know,” answered Margaret
evasively. “Who told you?”
“Louis: and I gathered from certain indications that there had been
something unpleasant in this meeting. I didn’t ask him to explain it to
me, and I don’t ask you. I hate explanations. I have always foreseen
that a certain amount of clashing was inevitable between you and Louis.
You are both very well in your ways, but your ways are very different
and not very reconcilable. I am very sorry anything of the sort
happened; but I don’t let it prey upon my mind, and I hope you will not
either.”
“Oh no,” said Margaret; “it was nothing very important. Mr. Gaston was
rude to Alan when he first came in, but he atoned for it as far as he
could afterward.”
At this moment a handsome drag containing two gentlemen and a liveried
servant was seen approaching, and, as it came up to them, one of the
gentlemen recognized Margaret with a bow and a smile.
“There’s Alan now!” said Margaret. “I wonder who the gentleman is, who
is driving.”
“It’s young Lord Waring,” said Mrs. Gaston, with animation. “He is
attached to the British Legation--the minister’s nephew, I believe.
And so that was Alan Decourcy! What a charming young man! I wonder how
Louis could be rude to a man like that.”
It was Margaret’s usual habit to pass over such remarks as this from
Cousin Eugenia, as she was convinced of the fruitlessness of argument
in her case; but this speech touched her on such a sore point that she
could not help saying, in rather keen tones:
“A man who could be rude to any one whomsoever, must be somewhat
difficult to count upon, I should think. He must be often puzzled to
decide whom to treat civilly and whom to snub.”
“Oh, there you go, with your high-flown Southern notions,” retorted
Mrs. Gaston, with imperturbable good-humor. “You’re your father’s own
child! But we must have this elegant young man to dinner. Do you happen
to know if he is engaged for this evening?”
“No,” said Margaret, “I didn’t hear him say.”
“He will probably call during the day.”
“No, he will not,” said Margaret, decidedly. “He told me he should not
see me again before going to Baltimore. But he is to make arrangements
for me to go over for a little visit soon, and I shall see him then.”
“Nonsense! He’s to come and see you at my house, and he’s to make
friends with us all. Louis has been in the wrong, and he shall be made
to see it. Leave that to me. I shall write young Decourcy a note as
soon as I get home; and you shall write too, and endorse my invitation.”
Margaret felt very anxious that her cousin should come and dine at the
Gastons’, but she seriously doubted his willingness to do so. Despite
his perfect courtesy, there had been something in his manner toward
Louis Gaston that made it clear that he did not desire to improve the
latter’s acquaintance, and she wanted him to see that in the interview
he had had with Gaston he had seen Louis at his worst, and to realize
that he had a better side. And, on the other hand, she wanted the
Gastons to see Alan Decourcy as a specimen of a Southern gentleman, who
not only possessed, by inheritance, all the instincts and traditions
that she clung to and respected, but who, in addition to these, had had
sufficient contact with the world to get rid of that colossal belief in
himself and his own methods and manners, as the only commendable ones,
which she felt to be one of the chief failings of her countrymen. She
had been too long accustomed to the arrogant assumption that a Southern
man had better take the wrong way in any issue than learn the right
way from a Yankee, not to rejoice in the prospect of presenting to her
friends a young Southerner who was really enlightened, and who, if he
loved his own land best, did so because he had compared it with others,
and not because he was ignorant of everything beyond it.
But when Mrs. Gaston had despatched her note, inviting Mr. Decourcy
to dine with them that evening at six, and there came a response
regretting that a previous engagement for dinner prevented his
accepting her invitation, Mrs. Gaston was quite provoked about it, and
when they were at dinner she confided her disappointment to her husband
and his brother.
“I called on him at the Arlington, this morning,” said Louis, “but he
was out.”
“Yes, we met him,” said Mrs. Gaston. “He was driving with Lord Waring.”
Margaret felt a little throb of gratification, as her cousin made this
announcement, of which she was deeply ashamed the next instant. “I
am getting the most horrid ideas into my head,” she said to herself;
“what a little snob I should have felt myself two months ago, to be
filled with vulgar elation at the thought of Alan Decourcy being seen
driving with a lord! It’s perfectly humiliating!” But all the same, the
satisfaction remained.
“I wonder where he is going to dine,” Mrs. Gaston went on, presently.
“He will call, of course, in acknowledgment of my invitation, and when
he does, Margaret, you must ask him.”
The next morning he did call, and Mrs. Gaston and Margaret were at home
to receive him. Margaret asked him, in the course of their talk, where
he had dined the day before, and convicted herself a second time of
snobbishness by the pleasure she felt in hearing him answer:
“At the British Legation. The minister happens to be an old
acquaintance, and Waring and I were great chums at one time.
By-the-way, he was, for some reason, rather struck with you, Daisy. He
was with me when I met you driving yesterday, you remember. I told him
you were a pet cousin of mine, and it may have been on that account
that he asked me to bring him to call upon you.”
“I hope you will do so,” Mrs. Gaston said. “We should be glad to see
him.”
There was no under-bred eagerness in her tones as she said it, but
Margaret suspected that there might be a little in her heart, and she
was not sorry when Decourcy answered, merely:
“Thank you; you’re very kind,” and then changed the subject by saying:
“I picked up a little present for you, when I was in Naples, Margaret.
I unpacked it this morning and will send it to you.”
A few minutes after this he took leave, having made on both ladies an
extremely good impression, which Mrs. Gaston owned to, in voluble
phrases, and which Margaret concealed under a very calm exterior.
A day or two later Alan called again, and brought with him Lord Waring,
who proved to be a little dull. He was shy and constrained in manner
and hampered by a certain gawkiness which Decourcy’s exquisite ease of
breeding made the more apparent. In spite of all this, however, there
was something rather distinguished in the young foreigner, a sincerity
and simplicity that stamped him as a man of worth, and a commanding
self-security that was as far removed from self-sufficiency as possible.
It was arranged between Miss Trevennon and her cousin that they were
to go to Baltimore in a few days, and it was not until he rose to take
leave that he put into her hands a box, which he told her contained the
little present he had spoken of.
As soon as the two gentlemen had gone, Margaret tore open the parcel
with the eagerness of a girl to whom presents are somewhat rare, and
discovered, in a beautiful little mosaic box, an antique silver
chatelaine of the most rare and exquisite workmanship. There was a
small watch, and other richly chased pendents, and the whole thing was
pretty enough to delight any girl alive, even in the absence of a just
appreciation of its value. Cousin Eugenia, however, being thoroughly
initiated in all such matters, was handling and examining it with a
depth of appreciation that almost brought tears to her eyes.
“Why, Margaret, it is a superb present,” she exclaimed; “a veritable
antique, such as not one woman in a thousand is lucky enough to
possess. You _must_ let me show it to Mrs. Norman; she is continually
flaunting hers in peoples’ faces, and it doesn’t compare with this. I
should say it is quite modern beside this. Just look at these clasps.
The watch is not so antique, but the chains and clasps are wonderful.”
Margaret, as she looked on and listened, could scarcely conceal the
amusement she felt. She had often before this had reason to observe
the almost solemn emotion with which Cousin Eugenia was wont to regard
certain articles of great luxuriousness or magnificence. She had seen
her stirred to the soul by a plush _portière_, and almost tearful at
the mere recollection of a French costume. Appreciation was one thing,
but this was another. It transcended mere appreciation, and seemed, in
some way, to be tinctured with the heroic.
“What an æsthete you would have made, Cousin Eugenia, if only the
proper influences had been brought to bear!” said Margaret, laughing.
“I can fancy you speaking, in awed and hushed accents, of a strange
and mysterious color, or a significant and subtle bit of drapery.
You consider yourself unemotional, but you have depths which may be
stirred. It takes a silver chatelaine of a rare order to compass it,
however, or something as imposing. I have to thank you for enlightening
me as to the value of Alan’s gift. If I tell him you wept upon it, it
may compensate in some measure for my Philistinism.”
“He must have taken great care in the selection of this present for
you,” Mrs. Gaston said. “He admires you very much, Margaret. I begin to
wonder what it means.”
Margaret laughed gayly.
“It means nothing whatever,” she said; “for goodness’ sake, don’t get
up any absurd notion about Alan Decourcy and me. It’s a brand-new idea.”
“To you it may be--not to him. He has a way of watching you that
means something. A careful, scrutinizing interest in all you do is
observable, and often it changes into those quiet signs of approbation,
which mean so much in a man like that. I shall be prepared for a prompt
surrender, so don’t be afraid of startling me if you have anything
to communicate from Baltimore. He told me the other day, that he had
reached an eminently marriageable age, and was dreadfully afraid of
passing beyond it. He also said that he much preferred to marry one of
his own countrywomen; and I believe that is what brings him home.”
Margaret gave an amused attention to her cousin’s speculations, after
which they fell to talking of the proposed visit to Baltimore, which
Cousin Eugenia acquiesced in only on condition that it should be of but
one week’s duration, and that Margaret should return to Washington for
Christmas. This she agreed to do, resolving, if she found it desirable,
to arrange for another visit before returning to the South.