When Edna entered the dining-room one evening a little late, as was her
habit, an unusually animated conversation seemed to be going on. Several
persons were talking at once, and Victor's voice was predominating,
even over that of his mother. Edna had returned late from her bath, had
dressed in some haste, and her face was flushed. Her head, set off by
her dainty white gown, suggested a rich, rare blossom. She took her seat
at table between old Monsieur Farival and Madame Ratignolle.
As she seated herself and was about to begin to eat her soup, which
had been served when she entered the room, several persons informed her
simultaneously that Robert was going to Mexico. She laid her spoon down
and looked about her bewildered. He had been with her, reading to her
all the morning, and had never even mentioned such a place as Mexico.
She had not seen him during the afternoon; she had heard someone say he
was at the house, upstairs with his mother. This she had thought nothing
of, though she was surprised when he did not join her later in the
afternoon, when she went down to the beach.
She looked across at him, where he sat beside Madame Lebrun, who
presided. Edna's face was a blank picture of bewilderment, which she
never thought of disguising. He lifted his eyebrows with the pretext
of a smile as he returned her glance. He looked embarrassed and uneasy.
"When is he going?" she asked of everybody in general, as if Robert were
not there to answer for himself.
"To-night!" "This very evening!" "Did you ever!" "What possesses him!"
were some of the replies she gathered, uttered simultaneously in French
and English.
"Impossible!" she exclaimed. "How can a person start off from Grand Isle
to Mexico at a moment's notice, as if he were going over to Klein's or
to the wharf or down to the beach?"
"I said all along I was going to Mexico; I've been saying so for years!"
cried Robert, in an excited and irritable tone, with the air of a man
defending himself against a swarm of stinging insects.
Madame Lebrun knocked on the table with her knife handle.
"Please let Robert explain why he is going, and why he is going
to-night," she called out. "Really, this table is getting to be more and
more like Bedlam every day, with everybody talking at once. Sometimes--I
hope God will forgive me--but positively, sometimes I wish Victor would
lose the power of speech."
Victor laughed sardonically as he thanked his mother for her holy wish,
of which he failed to see the benefit to anybody, except that it might
afford her a more ample opportunity and license to talk herself.