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He romped with the children in the garden, swung them, played ball with them, would have even run races with them perhaps, as they earnestly besought him to do, had the weather been cooler. Suddenly he caught sight of the perfect face of Alexia Boucheafen at a window, with her brother beside her, and, meeting her dark eyes, was a little abashed for the moment.
"Trouble?" repeated Alexia wonderingly. "Oh, yes, Mrs. Whitney's accident, you mean; I know it's awful for all of us." Pickering Dodge turned on his heel and walked off abruptly, and she ran back to her work with a final stare at him. "I know now," she said to herself wisely, "and I've been mean enough to hurt him when he was bearing it. Oh, dear me, things are getting so mixed up!"
"I don't think we ought to go, now," said Charlotte distinctly, not offering to join the merry scramble for the wearing apparel on the bed. "Charlotte Chatterton!" cried Alexia, thoroughly annoyed, "aren't you ashamed of yourself? Don't listen to her, girls, but come on," and she ran out to the head of the stairs. The other girls all stopped short.
I can not fight you; I am too old." Fitzgerald said nothing, and continued to play with his emptied wine-glass. "The Princess Alexia," went on the Colonel, "has a bulldog. I have always wondered till now what the nationality of the dog was. The bulldog neither forsakes nor forgives; he is an Englishman." This declaration was succeeded by another interval of silence.
"Oh, Aunt," cried Alexia, with a squeal, "you scared me 'most to death; I thought I was struck!" "Why, are you here, Alexia?" gasped Miss Rhys, when she could recover herself enough to speak. "Well, this is truly a dreadful storm," and she clutched her with shaking fingers. "Yes, I am here," said Alexia. "Don't pinch so, Aunt ow! My arm is all black and blue, I know it is."
"Then," said Polly, standing quite still, "since you won't let me help you, I'm going home, Alexia." "Oh, don't," cried Alexia, and she dropped her hands to her side in a flash, the blue silk waist dangling to her head by its hook. "I'll let you help whatever you want to, Polly," she mumbled meekly. So Polly set to work, Miss Rhys slipping out of the room.
"You don't mean to say that she approves, after all that Polly Pepper has worked over that old Recital, to" "Have some one else come in and grab the glory?" finished another voice. "Oh, dear dear!" groaned Alexia in between. "And Miss Salisbury would kill you, Clem, if she heard you say 'grab." "Well, do tell us, what did Miss Salisbury say?" demanded another girl impatiently.
"Oh!" said Alexia, in a surprised voice. "Well, I think she's perfectly and all-through-and-through horrid, so! Don't race like this through the streets, Polly. You'll get there soon enough." But Polly turned a deaf ear, and at last the prescription was handed over the counter at Oakley's, and after what seemed an endless time to Polly, the medicine was given to her.
When she saw that Polly heard, and had turned back, she beckoned smartly with her long fingers, on which shone, as Alexia had once said, "all the rings the Rhys family had ever owned," drew in her head, and waited till Polly came up under the window again. "Oh, Polly, it's just this how fortunate you hadn't gotten far. I want you to tell Alexia to get me some more green floss at Miss Angell's."
"Oh! oh! I must go to them," she cried remorsefully. "Tell Mr. Alstyne, please, when he comes back, where I am," and without another word she dashed back of some gaily dressed ladies just entering the supper room, and was out of the door. "If I ever did!" cried Alexia irritably to herself, "see anything so queer! Now she thinks she must race after those boys. I wish I'd kept still.
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