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"I do not know if it will amuse you," answered Wanda, in her energetic way, as if taking him at his word and seeking to rouse him, "but Mr. Mangles and Miss Cahere are coming to tea this evening." Deulin made a grimace at the clock. If he had anything to say, he seemed to be thinking, he must say it quickly. Wanda was, perhaps, thinking the same.
"Yes," he said. "I have known you a good many years, and have gathered that that is your way of looking at things. You want your wife to be in love with you. Odd! I suppose it is English. Well, I don't know if there is any harm done, but I certainly had a queer sensation when I saw Miss Cahere suddenly this morning. You think her a nice girl?" "Very nice," replied Cartoner, gravely.
"She don't like smoke," he growled. Cartoner looked at the cigar, and absent-mindedly threw his cigarette after it. He had apparently not made up his mind whether to go or stay, when Miss Cahere approached her uncle, without appearing to notice that he was not alone. "I suppose," she said, "that that was one of the officers of the ship, though he was very young quite a boy.
The Mangleses were among the first to arrive, Julia in a dress of rich black silk, with some green about it, and a number of iridescent beetle-wings serving as a relief. Miss Netty Cahere was a vision of pink and self-effacing quietness. "We shall know no one," she said, with a shrinking movement of her shoulders as they mounted the stairs.
He raised himself on his elbow, and with a jerk of the wrist threw something towards Kosmaroff. It was an envelope, closed and doubled over. "Put that in your pocket," he said. And Kosmaroff obeyed. "You know Miss Cahere, who was at the Europe?" asked Martin, suddenly, after a pause. Kosmaroff smiled the queer smile that twisted his face all to one side. "Yes, I know her."
"Ah, mademoiselle!" he said, standing hat in hand before her, "who could have dreamed of such a pleasure here and at this moment in this sad town?" "You seemed gay enough you were singing," answered Miss Cahere. "It was a sad little air, mademoiselle, and I was singing flat. Perhaps you noticed it?" "No, I never know when people are singing flat or not. I have no ear for music.
"Is there another in the room?" inquired Deulin, looking around him with some interest. "Over there, with the fair hair, dressed in black." "Ah! talking to Cartoner. Yes. Do you think her beautiful?" "I think she is perfectly lovely. But somehow she does not look like one of us, does she?" And Miss Cahere lowered her voice in a rather youthful and inexperienced way.
Soon after ten o'clock Miss Mangles received a message that Netty, having a headache, had gone to her room. Miss Cahere had never given way to that weakness, which is, or was, euphoniously called the emotions. She was not old-fashioned in that respect. But to-night, on regaining her room, she was conscious, for the first time in her life, of a sort of moral shakiness.
The Mangles arrived here this morning Mangles frere, Mangles soeur, and Miss Cahere. I say, Cartoner " He paused, and examined his own boots with a critical air. "I say, Cartoner, how old do you put me?" "Fifty." "All that, mon cher? all that? Old enough to play the part of an old fool who excels all other fools." Cartoner took up his pen again.
"But I dare say some of them are nice," said Miss Cahere, who evidently thought well of human nature. "Very likely." And Cartoner lapsed into his odd and somewhat disconcerting thoughtfulness. Miss Cahere continued to glance at him beneath her dark lashes dark lashes around blue eyes with a guileless and wondering admiration.
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