The Phantom of Bogue Holauba | Page 3

he made all the speed
possible in his toilet, and soon issued into the hall, following the sound
of voices through the open doors, which led him presently to the
threshold of the breakfast-room.
There were two ladies at the table, one of venerable aspect, with short,
white curls, held from her face by side-combs, a modish breakfast-cap,

and a morning-gown of thin gray silk. The other was young enough to
be her daughter, as indeed she was, dressed in deep mourning. Rising
instantly from her place as hostess behind the silver service, she
extended her hand to the stranger.
"Mr. Gordon, is it not? I was afraid you would arrive during the night.
Mercy! So uncomfortable! How good of you to come--yes, indeed."
She sank into her chair again, pressing her black-bordered handkerchief
to her dark eyes, which seemed to Gordon singularly dry, round, and
glossy--suggestive of chestnuts, in fact. "So good of you to come," she
repeated, "to the house of mourning! Very few people have any talent
for woe, Mr. Gordon. These rooms have housed many guests, but not to
weep with us. The stricken deer must weep alone."
She fell to hysterical sobbing, which her mother interrupted by a
remonstrant "My dear, my dear!" A blond young man with a florid
cheek and a laughing blue eye, who sat in an easy posture at the foot of
the table, aided the diversion of interest "Won't you introduce me, Mrs.
Keene?--or must I take the opportunity to tell Mr. Gordon that I am Dr.
Rigdon, very much at his service."
"Mercy! yes, yes, indeed!" Mrs. Keene acceded as the two young men
shook hands; then, evidently perturbed by her lack of ceremony, she
exclaimed pettishly, "Where is Geraldine? She always sees to it that
everybody knows everybody, and that everybody is served at a
reception or a tea. I never have to think of such things if she is in the
house."
The allusions seemed to Gordon a bit incongruous with the recent
heavy affliction of the household. The accuracy with which the waves
of red hair, of a rich tint that suggested chemicals, undulated about the
brow of the widow, the art with which the mourning-gown brought out
all the best points and subdued the defects of a somewhat clumsy figure,
the suspicion of a cosmetic's aid in a dark line, scarcely perceptible yet
amply effective, under the prominent eyes, all contributed to the
determination of a lady of forty-five years of age to look thirty.

"Geraldine is always late for breakfast, but surely she ought to be down
by this time," Mrs. Brinn said, with as much acrimony as a mild old
lady could well compass.
"Oh, Geraldine reads half the night," explained Mrs. Keene. "Such an
injurious habit! Don't you think so, Mr. Gordon?"
"Oh, she is all right," expostulated the young physician.
"Geraldine has a constitution of iron, I know," Mrs. Keene admitted.
"But, mercy!--to live in books, Mr. Gordon. Now, I always wanted to
live in life,--in the world! I used to tell Mr. Keene"--even she stumbled
a trifle in naming the so recent dead. "I used to tell him that he had
buried the best years of my life down here in the swamp on the
plantation."
"Pleasant for Mr. Keene," Gordon thought.
"I wanted to live in life," reiterated Mrs. Keene. "What is a glimpse of
New Orleans or the White Sulphur Springs once in a great while!"
"'This world is but a fleeting show,'" quoted Rigdon, with a palpable
effort to laugh off the inappropriate subject.
"Oh, that is what people always tell the restricted, especially when they
are themselves drinking the wine-cup to the bottom."
"And finding the lees bitter," said Rigdon.
The widow gave an offhand gesture. "You learned that argument from
Geraldine--he is nothing but an echo of Geraldine, Mr. Gordon--now,
isn't he, Mamma?" she appealed directly to Mrs. Brinn.
"He seems to have a great respect for Geraldine's opinion," said Mrs.
Brinn primly.
"If I may ask, who is this lady who seems to give the law to the
community?" inquired Gordon, thinking it appropriate to show, and
really beginning to feel, an interest in the personnel of the entourage.

"Am I related to her, as well as to Mr. Keene?"
"No; Geraldine is one of the Norris family--intimate friends of ours, but
not relatives. She often visits here, and in my affliction and loneliness I
begged her to come and stay for several weeks."
Not to be related to the all-powerful Geraldine was something of a
disappointment, for although Gordon had little sentiment or ideality in
his mental and moral system, one of his few emotional susceptibilities
lay in his family pride and clannish spirit He felt for his own, and he
was touched in his chief