Proceeding in accordance with the cue that Mrs. Smith had given her,
Miss Grace Winthrop engaged Mr. Livingstone in conversation upon
European topics; and was somewhat astonished to find, in view of his
past ten years in Europe, that they evidently had very little interest
for him. And all the while that she talked with him she was haunted by
the conviction that she had seen him somewhere; and all the while she
was aware of something in his manner, she could not tell what, that
seemed to imply that she ought to know who he was.
What Miss Grace Winthrop did feel entirely certain about, however, was
that this was one of the cleverest and one of the manliest men she had
ever come across. His well-shaped hands were big and brown, and his face
was brown, and the set of his head and the range of his broad shoulders
gave him an alert look and a certain air of command. There was that
about him which suggested a vigorous life in the open air. There was
nothing to suggest ten years in Europe, unless it were the charm of his
manner, and his neat way of saying bright things.
As for Livingstone, he was as one who at the same time is both entranced
and inspired. He knew that he never had been happier in his life; he
knew that he never had said so many clever things in so short a time.
Therefore it was that these young people always thereafter were most
harmoniously agreed that this was the very happiest dinner that they had
eaten in all their lives.
It came to an end much too soon for either of them. The ladies left the
room, and cigars were invoked to fill their place. This was the
moment that Livingstone had looked forward to as affording the first
practicable opportunity for taking his host apart and explaining that
his, Livingstone's, presence at that particular feast certainly must be
owing to some mistake. And this was the moment that Mr. Smith, also, had
looked forward to as available for clearing up the mystery--of which
his wife still was blissfully ignorant--as to who their stranger guest
really was. But the moment now being come, Livingstone weakly but
deliberately evaded it by engaging in an animated conversation with Mr.
Hutchinson Port in regard to the precise number of minutes and seconds
that a duck ought to remain before the fire; and Mr. Smith--having
partaken of his own excellent wines and meats until his whole being was
aglow with a benevolent friendliness--contented himself with thinking
that, no matter who his guest was, he certainly was a capital fellow;
and that to cross-question him as to his name, at least until the
evening was at an end, would be a gross outrage upon the laws of
hospitality.
Livingstone, however, had the grace to feel a good deal ashamed of
himself as they returned to the drawing-room. In all that had gone
before, he had been a victim of circumstances. He had an uncomfortable
conviction that his position now was not wholly unlike that of an
impostor. But as he pushed aside the portiere he beheld a pair of blue
eyes which, he flattered himself, betrayed an expression of pleased
expectancy--and his compunctions vanished.
There was only a little time left to them, for the evening was almost
at an end. Their talk came back to travel. Did she like travelling in
America? he asked. Yes, she liked it very much indeed, "only "--as a
sudden memory of a past experience flashed into her mind--"one does
sometimes meet such dreadfully horrid people!"
They were sitting, as they talked, in a narrow space between a table and
the wall, made narrower by the presence of an unused chair. Just as this
memory was aroused, some one tried to push by them, and Livingstone,
rising, lifted the obstructing chair away. To find a clear space in
which to put it down, he lifted it across the table; and for a moment he
stood erect, holding the chair out before him at arm's-length.
When he seated himself and turned again to speak to Grace, he was
startled to find that her face and shoulders, and even her arms--her
arms and shoulders were delectable--were crimson; and in her eyes he
found at last the look of recognition that he had hoped for earlier in
the evening, but that now he had ceased to expect. Recognition of this
emphatic sort he certainly had not expected at all.
"You--you see," she said, "I al--always have thought that you were
a robber and a murderer, and shocking things like that. And I didn't
really see you that day, except as you walked away, holding up that
horrid little man, kicking--just as you held up the chair. Can you ever,
ever forgive me for thinking such wicked things about you, and for being
so ungrateful as not to know you at the very first?"
And Livingstone, then and later, succeeded in convincing her that he
could.