Questionable Shapes | Page 8

again, and it was with no
more surprise than if the vision had intimated its second approach that
he one night found her name in the minute envelope which the footman
presented him at a house where he was going to dine, and realized that
he was appointed to take her out. It was a house where he rather liked

to go, for in that New York of his where so few houses had any
distinctive character, this one had a temperament of its own in so far
that you might expect to meet people of temperament there, if
anywhere. They were indeed held in a social solution where many other
people of no temperament at all floated largely and loosely about, but
they were there, all the same, and it was worth coming on the chance of
meeting them, though the indiscriminate hospitality of the hostess
might let the evening pass without promoting the chance. Now,
however, she had unwittingly put into Hewson's keeping, for two hours
at least, the very temperament that had kept his fancy for the last
half-year and more. He fairly laughed at sight of the name on the little
card, and hurried into the drawing-room, where the first thing after
greeting his hostess, he caught the wandering look and vague smile of
Mrs. Rock. The look and the smile became personal to him, and she
welcomed him with a curious resumption of the confidential terms in
which they had seemed to part that afternoon at St. Johnswort. He
thought that she was going to begin talking to him where she had left
off, about Rosalie, as she had called her, and he was disappointed in the
commonplaces that actually ensued. At the end of these, however, she
did say: "Miss Hernshaw is here with me. Have you seen her?"
"Oh, yes," Hewson returned, for he had caught sight of the girl in a
distant group, on his way up to Mrs. Rock, but in view of the affluent
opportunity before him had richly forborne trying even to make her
bow to him, though he believed she had seen him. "I am to have the
happiness of going out with her."
"Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Rock, "that is nice," and then the people began
assorting themselves, and the man who was appointed to take Mrs.
Rock out, came and bowed Hewson away.
He hastened to that corner of the room where Miss Hernshaw was
waiting, and if he had been suddenly confronted with his apparition he
could not have experienced a deeper and stranger satisfaction than he
felt as the girl lifted up her innocent fierce face upon him.
It brought back that whole day at St. Johnswort, of which she, with his
vision, formed the supreme interest and equally the mystery; and it
went warmly to his heart to have her peremptorily abolish all banalities
by saying, "I was wondering if they were going to give me you, as soon
as you came in."

She put her slim hand on his arm as she spoke, and he thought she must
have felt him quiver at her touch. "Then you were not afraid they were
going to give you me?" he bantered.
"No," she said, "I wanted to talk with you. I wanted you to tell me what
Mrs. Rock said about me!"
"Just now? She said you were here."
"No, I mean that day at St. Johnswort."
Hewson laughed out for pleasure in her frankness, and then he felt a
gathering up of his coat-sleeve under her nervous fingers, as if (such a
thing being imaginable) she were going unwittingly to pinch him for
his teasing. "She said she wanted to explain you a little."
"And then what!"
"And then nothing. She seemed to catch your eye, and she stopped."
The fingers relaxed their hold upon that gathering up of his coat-sleeve.
"I won't be explained, and I have told her so. If I choose to act myself,
and show out my real thoughts and feelings, how is it any worse than if
I acted somebody else!"
"I should think it was very much better," said Hewson, inwardly
warned to keep his face straight.

VI.
They had time for no more talk between the drawing-room and the
dinner table, and when Miss Hernshaw's chair had been pushed in
behind her, and she sat down, she turned instantly to the man on her
right and began speaking to him, and left Hewson to make conversation
with any one he liked or could.
He did not get on very well, not because there were not enough
amusing people beside him and over against him, but because he was
all the time trying to eavesdrop what was saying between Miss
Hernshaw and the man on her right. It