"Would it be an unpardonable infraction of etiquette if we were to
walk home?" questioned Rosa of Mr. Chilton, when they were out of
Mr. Mason's hearing. "The night is very mild."
"But your feet. Are they not too lightly shod for the pavement?"
"I left a pair of thick gaiters in the dressing-room, which I wore
in the carriage."
"Then I will be answerable for the breach of etiquette, should it
ever be found out," was the reply, and Rosa disappeared into the
tiring-roem to equip herself for the walk.
It was a lovely night for December--moonlighted and bland as
October, and neither manifested a disposition to accelerate the
saunter into which they had fallen at their first step beyond the
portico. Rosa dropped her rattling tone, and began to talk seriously
and sensibly of the scene they had left, the flatness of fashionable
society after the freshness of novelty had passed from it, and her
preference for home life and tried friends.
"Yet I always rate these the more truly after a peep at a different
sphere," she said. "Our Old Virginia country-house is never so dear
and fair at any other time as when I return to it after playing at
fine lady abroad for a month or six weeks. I used to fret at the
monotony of my daily existence; think my simple plsasures tame. I am
thankful that I go back to them, as I grow older, as one does to
pure, cold water, after drinking strong wine."
"You are blessed in having this fountain to which you may resort in
your heart-drought," answered Frederic, sadly. "The gods do not
often deny the gift of home and domestic affections to woman. It is
an exception to a universal rule when a man who has reached thirty
without building a nest for himself, has a pleasant shelter spared,
or offered to him elsewhere."
"Yet you would weary, in a week, of the indolent, aimless life led
by most of our youthful heirs expectant and apparent," returned
Rosa. "I remember once telling you how I envied you for having work
and a career. I was youthful then myself--and foolish as immature."
"I recollect!" and there was no more talk for several squares.
Rosa was getting alarmed at the thought of her temerity in reverting
to this incident in their former intercourse, and meditating the
expediency of entering upon an apology, which might, after all,
augment, rather than correct the mischief she had done, when
Frederic accosted her as if there had been no hiatus in the
dialogue.