Unfeigned laughter was his answer. He laughed, too, not very heartily.
"My first glimpse of our legendary nursery warrior was certainly astonishing," she said, looking around at him with frank malice. Then, quickly: "But you don't mind, do you? It's all in the family, of course."
"Of course," he agreed with good grace; "no use to pretend dignity here; you all see through me in a few moments."
She had given him his tea. Now she sat upright in her chair, smiling, distraite, her hat casting a luminous shadow across her eyes; the fluffy furs, fallen from throat and shoulder, settled loosely around her waist.
Glancing up from her short reverie she encountered his curious gaze.
"To-night is to be my first dinner dance, you know," she said. Faint tints of excitement stained her white skin; the vivid scarlet contrast of her mouth was almost startling. "On Thursday I was introduced" she explained, "and now I'm to have the gayest winter I ever dreamed of. . . . And I'm going to leave you in a moment if Nina doesn't hurry and come. Do you mind?"
"Of course I mind," he protested amiably, "but I suppose you wish to devote several hours to dressing."
She nodded. "Such a dream of a gown! Nina's present! You'll see it. I hope Gerald will be here to see it. He promised. You'll say you like it if you do like it, won't you?"
"I'll say it, anyway."
"Oh, wellif you are contented to be commonplace like other men"
"I've no ambition to be different at my age."
"Your age?" she repeated, looking up quickly. "You are as young as Nina, aren't you? Half the men in the younger set are no younger than youand you know it," she concluded"you are only trying to make me say soand you've succeeded. I'm not very experienced yet. Does tea bring wisdom, Captain Selwyn?" pouring herself a cup. "I'd better arm myself immediately." She sank back into the depths of the chair, looking gaily at him over her lifted cup. "To my rapid education in worldly wisdom!" She nodded, and sipped the tea almost pensively.
He certainly did seem young there in the firelight, his narrow, thoroughbred head turned toward the fire. Youth, too, sat lightly on his shoulders; and it was scarcely a noticeably mature hand that touched the short sun-burnt moustache at intervals. From head to waist, from his loosely coupled, well-made limbs to his strong, slim foot, strength seemed to be the keynote to a physical harmony most agreeable to look at.
The idea entered her head that he might appear to advantage on horseback.
"We must ride together," she said, returning her teacup to the tray; "if you don't mind riding with me? Do you? Gerald never has time, so I go with a groom. But if you would care to go" she laughed. "Oh, you see I am already beginning a selfish family claim on you. I foresee that you'll be very busy with us all persistently tugging at your coat-sleeves; and what with being civil to me and a martyr to Drina, you'll have very little time to yourself. AndI hope you'll like my brother Gerald when you meet him. Now I must go."
Then, rising and partly turning to collect her furs:
"It's quite exciting to have you here. We will be good friends, won't we? . . . and I think I had better stop my chatter and go, because my cunning little Alsatian maid is not very clever yet. . . . Good-bye."
She stretched out one of her amazingly white hands across the table, giving him a friendly leave-taking and welcome all in one frank handshake; and left him standing there, the fresh contact still cool in his palm.
Nina came in presently to find him seated before the fire, one hand shading his eyes; and, as he prepared to rise, she rested both arms on his shoulders, forcing him into his chair again.
"So you've bewitched Eileen, too, have you?" she said tenderly. "Isn't she the sweetest little thing?"
"She'sahas tall as I am," he said, blinking at the fire.
"She's only nineteen; pathetically unspoileda perfect dear. Men are going to rave over her andnot spoil her. Did you ever see such hair?that thick, ruddy, lustrous, copper tint?and sometimes it's like gold afire. And a skin like snow and peaches!she's sound to the core. I've had her exercised and groomed and hardened and trained from the very beginningevery inch of her minutely cared for exactly like my own babies. I've done my best," she concluded with a satisfied sigh, and dropped into a chair beside her brother.
"Thoroughbred," commented Selwyn, "to be turned out to-night. Is she bridle-wise and intelligent?"
"More than sufficiently. That's one troubleshe's had, at times, a depressing, sponge-like desire for absorbing all sorts of irrelevant things that no girl ought to concern herself with. Ito tell the truthif I had not rigorously drilled hershe might have become a trifle tiresome; I don't mean precisely frumpybut one of those earnest young things whose intellectual conversation becomes a visitationone of the wants-to-know-for-the-sake-of-knowledge sorta dreadful human blotter! Oh, dear; show me a girl with her mind soaking up 'isms' and I'll show you a social failure with a wisp of hair on her cheek, who looks the dowdier the more expensively she's gowned."
"So you believe you've got that wisp of copper-tinted hair tucked up snugly?" asked Selwyn, amused.
"Iit's still a worry to me; at intervals she's inclined to let it slop. Thank Heaven, I've made her spine permanently straight and her head is screwed properly to her neck. There's not a slump to her from crown to heelI know, you know. She's had specialists to forestall every blemish. I made up my mind to do it; I'm doing it for my own babies. That's what a mother is forto turn out her offspring to the world as flawless and wholesome as when they came into it!physically and mentally soundor a woman betrays her stewardship. They must be as healthy of body and limb as they are innocent and wholesome minded. The happiest of all creatures are drilled thoroughbreds. Show me a young girl, unspoiled mentally and spiritually untroubled, with a superb physique, and I'll show you a girl equipped for the happiness of this world. And that is what Eileen is."
"I should say," observed Selwyn, "that she's equipped for the slaughter of man."
"Yes, but I am selecting the victim," replied his sister demurely.
"Oh! Have you? Already?"
"Tentatively."
"Who?"
"Sudbury Gray, I thinkwith Scott Innis for an understudyperhaps the Draymore man as alternateI don't know; there's time."
"Plenty," he said vaguely, staring into the fire where a log had collapsed into incandescent ashes.
She continued to talk about Eileen until she noticed that his mind was on other mattershis preoccupied stare enlightened her. She said nothing for a while.
But he woke up when Austin came in and settled his big body in a chair.
"Drina, the little minx, called me back on some flimsy pretext," he said, relighting his cigar; "I forgot that time was goingand she was wily enough to keep me talking until Miss Paisely caught me at it and showed me out. I tell you," turning on Selwyn"children are what make life worth wh" He ceased abruptly at a gentle tap from his wife's foot, and Selwyn looked up.
Whether or not he divined the interference he said very quietly: "I'd rather have had children than anything in the world. They're about the best there is in life; I agree with you, Austin."
His sister, watching him askance, was relieved to see his troubled face become serene, though she divined the effort.
"Kids are the best," he repeated, smiling at her. "Failing them, for second choice, I've taken to the laboratory. Some day I'll invent something and astonish you, Nina."