Ailsa Paige | Page 8

without enthusiasm. "But,"
she added, "I did notice you and Phil Berkley on the stairs. It didn't take
you long, did it?"
Ailsa's colour rose a trifle.
"We exchanged scarcely a dozen words," she observed sedately.
Camilla laughed.
"It didn't take you long," she repeated, "either of you. It was the
swiftest case of fascination that I ever saw."
"You are absurd, Camilla."
"But _isn't_ he perfectly fascinating? I think he is the most
romantic-looking creature I ever saw. However," she added, folding her
slender hands in resignation, "there is nothing else to him. He's
accustomed to being adored; there's no heart left in him. I think it's
dead."
Mrs. Paige stood looking up at her, trowel hanging loosely in her
gloved hand.
"Did anything--kill it?" she asked carelessly.
"I don't think it ever lived very long. Anyway there is something

missing in the man; something blank in him. A girl's time is wasted in
wondering what is going on behind those adorable eyes of his. Because
there is nothing going on--it's all on the surface--the charm, the man's
engaging ways and manners--all surface. . . . I thought I'd better tell
you, Ailsa."
"There was no necessity," said Ailsa calmly. "We scarcely exchanged a
dozen words."
As she spoke she became aware of a shape behind the veranda
windows, a man's upright figure passing and repassing. And now, at the
open window, it suddenly emerged into full sunlight, a spare, sinewy,
active gentleman of fifty, hair and moustache thickly white, a deep
seam furrowing his forehead from the left ear to the roots of the hair
above the right temple.
The most engaging of smiles parted the young widow's lips.
"Good morning, Captain Lent," she cried gaily. "You have neglected
me dreadfully of late."
The Captain came to a rigid salute.
"April eleventh, eighteen-sixty-one!" he said with clean-cut precision.
"Good morning, Mrs. Paige! How does your garden blow? Blow--blow
ye wintry winds! Ahem! How have the roses wintered--the rose of
yesterday?"
"Oh, I don't know, sir. I am afraid my sister's roses have not wintered
very well. I'm really a little worried about them."
"I am worried about nothing in Heaven, on Earth, or in Hell," said the
Captain briskly. "God's will is doing night and day, Mrs. Paige. Has
your brother-in-law gone to business?"
"Oh, yes. He and Stephen went at eight this morning."
"Is your sister-in-law well. God bless her!" shouted the Captain.

"Uncle, you _mustn't_ shout," remonstrated Camilla gently.
"I'm only exercising my voice,"--and to Ailsa:
"I neglect nothing, mental, physical, spiritual, that may be of the
slightest advantage to my country in the hour when every respiration,
every pulse beat, every waking thought shall belong to the Government
which I again shall have the honour of serving."
He bowed stiffly from the waist, to Ailsa, to his niece, turned right
about, and marched off into the house, his white moustache bristling,
his hair on end.
"Oh, dear," sighed Camilla patiently, "isn't it disheartening?"
"He is a dear," said Ailsa. "I adore him."
"Yes--if he'd only sleep at night. I am very selfish I suppose to
complain; he is so happy and so interested these days--only--I am
wondering--if there ever should be a war--would it break his poor old
heart if he couldn't go? They'll never let him, you know."
Ailsa looked up, troubled:
"You mean--because!" she said in a low voice.
"Well I don't consider him anything more than delightfully eccentric."
"Neither do I. But all this is worrying me ill. His heart is so entirely
wrapped up in it; he writes a letter to Washington every day, and
nobody ever replies. Ailsa, it almost terrifies me to think what might
happen--and he be left out!"
"Nothing will happen. The world is too civilised, dear."
"But the papers talk about nothing else! And uncle takes every paper in
New York and Brooklyn, and he wants to have the editor of the Herald
arrested, and he is very anxious to hang the entire staff of the Daily
News. It's all well enough to stand there laughing, but I believe there'll

be a war, and then my troubles will begin!"
Ailsa, down on her knees again, dabbled thoughtfully in the soil,
exploring the masses of matted spider-wort for new shoots.
Camilla looked on, resignedly, her fingers playing with the loosened
masses of her glossy black hair. Each was following in silence the idle
drift of thought which led Camilla back to her birthday party.
"Twenty!" she said still more resignedly--"four years younger than you
are, Ailsa Paige! Oh dear--and here I am, absolutely unmarried. That is
not a very maidenly thought, I suppose, is it Ailsa?"
"You always were a romantic child," observed Ailsa, digging
vigorously in the track of a vanishing May beetle. But when she
disinterred him her