He was kept waiting for some time. More than once he heard in the next room
the sounds of smothered laughter and two voices, pitched in a confidential
tone: the one with persistent appeal, the other with persistent refusal. At
last there reached him the laughter of a merry agreement, and Amy entered
the room, holding Kitty Poythress by the hand.
She had been looking all day for her lost bundle. Now she was tired; worried
over the loss of her things which had been bought by her aunt at great cost
and self-sacrifice; and disappointed that she should not be able to go to
the ball on Thursday evening. It was to be the most brilliant assemblage of
the aristocratic families of the town that had ever been known in the
wilderness and the first endeavour to transplant beyond the mountains the
old social elegance of Williamsburg, Annapolis, and Richmond. Not to be seen
in the dress that Mrs. Falconer, dreaming of her own past, had deftly
made--not to have her beauty reign absolute in that scene of lights and
dance and music--it was the long, slow crucifixion of all the impulses of
her gaiety and youth.
She did not wish to see any one to-night, least of all John Gray with whom
she had had an engagement to go. No doubt he had come to ask why she had
broken it in the note which she had sent him that morning. She had not
given him any reason in the note; she did not intend to give him the reason
now. He would merely look at her in his grave, reproachful, exasperating way
and ask what was the difference: could she not wear some other dress? or
what great difference did it make whether she went at all? He was always
ready to take this manner of patient forbearance toward her, as though she
were one of his school children. To-night she was in no mood to have her
troubles treated as trifles or herself soothed like an infant that was
crying to be rocked.
She walked slowly into the room, dragging Kitty behind her. She let him
press the tips of her unbending fingers, pouted, smiled faintly, dropped
upon a divan by Kitty's side, strengthened her hold on Kitty's hand, and
fixed her eyes on Kitty's hair.
"Aren't you tired?" she said, giving it an absorbed caressing stroke, with a
low laugh. "I am."
"I am going to look again to-morrow, Kitty," she continued, brightening up
with a decisive air, "and the next day and the next." She kept her face
turned aside from John and did not include him in the conversation. Women
who imagine themselves far finer ladies than this child was treat a man in
this way--rarely--very rarely--say, once in the same man's lifetime.