When they went in to supper, they had planned to tell Miss Agatha of
their earth-staggering secret at once. But the colonel comprehended, at
the first glimpse of his sister, that the opportunity would be
ill-chosen.
The meal was an awkward half-hour. Miss Agatha, from the head of the
table, did very little talking, save occasionally to evince views of
life that were both lachrymose and pugnacious. And the lovers talked
with desperate cheerfulness, so that there might be no outbreak so long
as Pilkins--preëminently ceremonious among butlers, and as yet inclined
to scoff at the notion that the Musgraves of Matocton were not divinely
entrusted to his guardianship,--was in the room.
Coming so close upon the heels of his high hour, this contretemps of
Agatha's having one of her "attacks," seemed more to Rudolph Musgrave
than a man need rationally bear with equanimity. Perhaps it was a trifle
stiffly that he said he did not care for any raspberries.
His sister burst into tears.
"That's all the thanks I get. I slave my life out, and what thanks do I
get for it? I never have any pleasure, I never put my foot out of the
house except to go to market,--and what thanks do I get for it? That's
what I want you to tell me with the first raspberries of the season.
That's what I want! Oh, I don't wonder you can't look me in the eye. And
I wish I was dead! that's what I wish!"
Colonel Musgrave did not turn at once toward Patricia, when his sister
had stumbled, weeping, from the dining-room.
"I--I am so sorry, Olaf," said a remote and tiny voice.
Then he touched her hand with his finger-tips, ever so lightly. "You
must not worry about it, dear. I daresay I was unpardonably brusque. And
Agatha's health is not good, so that she is a trifle irritable at times.
Why, good Lord, we have these little set-to's ever so often, and never
give them a thought afterwards. That is one of the many things the
future Mrs. Musgrave will have to get accustomed to, eh? Or does that
appalling prospect frighten you too much?"
And Patricia brazenly confessed that it did not. She also made a face at
him, and accused Rudolph Musgrave of trying to crawl out of marrying
her, which proceeding led to frivolities unnecessary to record, but
found delectable by the participants.