Marriage à la mode | Page 5

the landing against the pressure of a stream of damsels, who crowded to the open doors of the rooms, looked through the gratings which bar the entrance without obstructing the view, chattered, and moved on. General Hobson stood against the wall, a model of angry patience. Cecilia Boyson, glancing at him with a laughing eye, said in Roger's ear: "How sad it is that your uncle dislikes us so!"
"Us? What do you mean?"
"That he hates America so. Oh, don't say he doesn't, because I've watched him, at one, two, three parties. He thinks we're a horrid, noisy, vulgar people, with most unpleasant voices, and he thanks God for the Atlantic--and hopes he may never see us again."
"Well, of course, if you're so certain about it, there's no good in contradicting you. Did you say that lady's name was Floyd? Could I have seen her last week in New York?"
"Quite possible. Perhaps you heard something about her?"
"No," said Barnes, after thinking a moment. "I remember--somebody pointed her out at the opera."
His companion looked at him with a kind of hard amusement. Cecilia Boyson was only five-and-twenty, but there was already something in her that foretold the formidable old maid.
"Well, when people begin upon Daphne Floyd," she said, "they generally go through with it. Ah! here comes Alfred."
Captain Boyson, pushing his way through the throng, announced to his sister and General Hobson that he had found the curator in charge of the house, who sent a message by him to the effect that if only the party would wait till four o'clock, the official closing hour, he himself would have great pleasure in showing them the house when all the tourists of the day had taken their departure.
"Then," said Miss Floyd, smiling at the General, "let us go and sit in the garden, and feel ourselves aristocratic and superior."
The General's brow smoothed. Voice and smile were alike engaging. Their owner was not exactly pretty, but she had very large dark eyes, and a small glowing face, set in a profusion of hair. Her neck, the General thought, was the slenderest he had ever seen, and the slight round lines of her form spoke of youth in its first delicate maturity. He followed her obediently, and they were all soon in the garden again, and free of the crowd. Miss Floyd led the way across the grass with the General.
"Ah! now you will see the General will begin to like us," said Miss Boyson. "Daphne has got him in hand."
Her tone was slightly mocking. Barnes observed the two figures in front of them, and remarked that Miss Floyd had a "very--well--a very foreign look."
"Not English, you mean?--or American? Well, naturally. Her mother was a Spaniard--a South American--from Buenos Ayres. That's why she is so dark, and so graceful."
"I never saw a prettier dress," said Barnes, following the slight figure with his eyes. "It's so simple."
His companion laughed again. The manner of the laugh puzzled her companion, but, just as he was about to put a question, the General and the young lady paused in front, to let the rest of the party come up with them. Miss Floyd proposed a seat a little way down the slope, where they might wait the half-hour appointed.
That half-hour passed quickly for all concerned. In looking back upon it afterwards two of the party were conscious that it had all hung upon one person. Daphne Floyd sat beside the General, who paid her a half-reluctant, half-fascinated attention. Without any apparent effort on her part she became indeed the centre of the group who sat or lay on the grass. All faces were turned towards her, and presently all ears listened for her remarks. Her talk was young and vivacious, nothing more. But all she said came, as it were, steeped in personality, a personality so energetic, so charged with movement and with action that it arrested the spectators--not always agreeably. It was like the passage of a train through the darkness, when, for the moment, the quietest landscape turns to fire and force.
The comparison suggested itself to Captain Boyson as he lay watching her, only to be received with an inward mockery, half bitter, half amused. This girl was always awakening in him these violent or desperate images. Was it her fault that she possessed those brilliant eyes--eyes, as it seemed, of the typical, essential woman?--and that downy brunette skin, with the tinge in it of damask red?--and that instinctive art of lovely gesture in which her whole being seemed to express itself? Boyson, who was not only a rising soldier, but an excellent amateur artist, knew every line of the face by heart. He had drawn Miss Daphne from the life on several occasions; and from memory scores of times. He was not likely to draw