"How very, very good of you, Mr. Livingstone, to come to our rescue!" It
was Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith who spoke, and she spoke in a guarded tone;
for Livingstone was among the last to arrive, and she had no desire to
publish among her guests the catastrophe that so nearly had overtaken
her.
"And I know," she continued: "that you will understand how sorry I am
that this first visit of Mr. Smith's old friend to our house should be
under such peculiar circumstances. But you will have your reward, for
you are to take out the very prettiest and the very brightest girl
here. Come and be rewarded!" And Mrs. Smith slipped her hand upon her
benefactor's arm, and piloted him across the room.
"Miss Winthrop, permit me to present Mr. Livingstone. Miss Winthrop is
half Boston and half European, Mr. Livingstone; and as you, after these
ten years abroad, must be wholly European, you can cheer each other as
fellow foreigners in the midst of Philadelphia barbarism"--with which
pleasant speech the hostess turned quickly to receive the last arrival
(a man, of course; only a man would dare to be even near to late at
one of Mrs. Rittenhouse Smith's dinners), and then, standing beside the
doorway, with Mr. Hutchinson Port, marshalled her company in to dinner.
It was a comfort to her to know that for once in his fault-finding
life Mr. Port would be compelled, since he was to be seated beside his
hostess, to eat his food without abusing it.
Just at this time two things struck Mrs. Smith as odd. One was that as
she presented her handsome guest to Miss Grace Winthrop she certainly
had felt him start, while his arm had trembled curiously beneath her
hand. The other was that as Mr. Rittenhouse Smith left the drawing-room,
passing close beside her with Miss Winthrop upon his arm, he made a face
at her. The first of these phenomena struck her as curious. The second
struck her as ominous. Had it been possible she would have investigated
the cause of Mr. Smith's facial demonstration. But it was not possible.
She only could breathe a silent prayer that all would go well--and the
while sniff anxiously to discover if perchance there were a smell of
scorching duck.
Mrs. Smith would have been still more mystified could she have been
cognizant at this juncture of her husband's and of Miss Grace Winthrop's
and of Mr. Livingstone's thoughts.
The first of these was thinking: "It isn't Van Rensselaer Livingstone,
any more than I am; though he certainly looks like him. And I'm sure
that he knows that he don't know me. And I think that we've managed to
get into a blank idiotic mess!"
And the second of these was thinking: "If he's been in Europe for the
past ten years, there's not one chance in fifty that I ever have laid
eyes on him. But I know I have!"
And the third of these was thinking: "There isn't man in the room who
looks enough like Dicky Smith to be his tenth cousin. But if ever the
goodness of heaven was shown in the affairs of men it is shown here to
me to-night!"