The Blair reception to introduce their niece may have been to others
the usual matter of lights and flowers and music, but to the niece it
was different, for it was her affair.
She and her aunt went down together. The stairway was broad, and
to-night its banister trailed roses.
Alexina was radiant. She even marched up and kissed her uncle. Things
felt actually festive.
All the little social world was there that evening. Alexina recalled
many of the girls and the older women; of the older men she knew a
few, but of the younger only one could she remember as knowing.
He was a rosy-cheeked youth with vigorous, curling yellow hair, and he
came up to her with a hearty swinging of the body, smiling in a
friendly and expectant way, showing nice, square teeth, boyishly far
apart. She knew him at once; he had gone to dancing school when she
did, and she was glad to see him.
"Why, Georgy," she said, and held out a hand, just as it was borne in
upon her that Georgy wore a young down on his lip and was a man.
"Oh," she said, blushing, "I hope you don't mind?"
He was blushing, too, but the smile that showed his nice spaced teeth
was honest.
"No," he said; "I don't mind."
Which Alexina felt was good of him and so she smiled back and chatted
and tried to make it up. And Georgy lingered and continued to linger
and to blush beneath his already ruddy skin until Harriet, turning,
sent him away, for Harriet was a woman of the world and Georgy was the
rich and only child of the richest mamma present, and the other mammas
were watching.
Alexina's eyes followed him as he went, then wandered across the long
room to Emily. She had expected to feel a sense of responsibility
about Emily, but Uncle Austen, after a long and precise survey of her
from across the room, put his eye-glasses into their case and went to
her. His prim air of unbending for the festive occasion was almost
comical as he brought up youths to make them known. This done he fell
back to his general duties as host.
But Alexina, watching Emily, felt dissatisfaction with her, her
archness was overdone, her laughter was anxious.
Why should Emily stoop to strive so? With her milk-white skin and
chestnut hair, with her red lips and starry eyes there should have
belonged to her a pride and a young dignity. Alexina, youthfully
stern, turned away.
It brought her back to the amusing things of earth, however, that
Uncle Austen should take Emily home when it was over. Would Emily be
arch with Uncle Austen? Picture it!
Several of the older men lingered after the other guests were gone,
and they, with Harriet and Alexina, had coffee in the library. The
orderliness of the room, compared with the dishevelled appearance
elsewhere now the occasion was over, seemed cheerful, and these men
friends of Aunt Harriet were interesting. The talk was personal, as
among intimates. The local morning paper, opposed to Major Rathbone's
own, it seemed, had taxed the Major with aspiring to be the next
nominee of his party for Congress. And this was proving occasion for
much banter at his expense by the other men, for the truth was the
Major _was_ being considered as a possibility, but a possibility
tempered, for one thing, by the fact that his guerrilla past shed a
somewhat lurid light upon his exemplary present.
"But why want to keep it secret as if it were something dark and
plotting?" insisted Harriet Blair. "Why not come right out and admit
your willingness if your party wants you?"
The men laughed in varying degrees of delight at this feminine
perspicacity. The Major regarded her with somewhat comical humour,
looking a little shamefaced, though he was laughing too. "For the fear
my party can't afford to have me," he answered. "It takes money. They
are casting about for a richer available man first, and, that failing,
why--"
Here Austen Blair came in, bringing a breath of the November chill. Or
was it his own personality that brought the chill, Alexina wondered.
For, to do him justice, there was a distinction, a fine coldness, a
bearing about him which distinguished him in any company.
Promptly on his coming the group broke up. The others passed into the
hall to hunt overcoats, but the Major paused to address Harriet, who
had risen and was looking at him as he spoke. There was colour in her
face, and light.
"Friday evening, then," he was saying, "you will go with me to hear
Benton lecture?"
Austen, who had taken a cup of coffee from Alexina, looked up sharply.
He put the cup down.
Harriet smiled acquiescence. "Friday evening," she agreed.
Later, in the hall, as the outer door shut behind the group of
departing men, Austen turned on his sister, his nostrils tense with
dilation.
"Do you realize what you are doing?" he asked. "Have you utterly lost
sight of how this man was regarded by your father, if you prefer to
put consideration for me out of the matter?"
Harriet continued to unfasten her long glove. The colour was gone from
her face, and the light, but otherwise she stood outwardly serene.
"The fight was fair," she said calmly, "and also mutual."
Her brother regarded her fixedly, then he spoke. "Though what there is
to be gained in thus setting yourself in opposition to my repeatedly
expressed wishes I do not"--all at once two steely points seemed to
leap into the blue intensity of his gaze--"unless--in Heaven's name,
Harriet, is it possible that you mean to--"
"Mean to what?" she repeated. Harriet was meeting his eyes with a look
as unflinching as his. She seemed unconsciously to have drawn herself
to her full, superb height, but she had grown white as her gown.
He suddenly resumed his usual manner. "Take the child on to bed," he
said, glancing at Alexina standing startled, looking from one to the
other. "This is no time to have the matter out."
"I agree with you quite," said his sister, and held out a hand to the
girl. Alexina took it quickly, impulsively, and held to it as they
went up the garlanded stairway, which suddenly looked tawdry and
garish. In the hall above the girl lifted Harriet's hand and put her
cheek against it, then almost ran in at her own door.