"There is something in this I do not understand," said Frederic,
setting a chair for himself close to hers. "Are you really
suffering? I imagined that yours was a case of simple cold, and that
Mrs. Mason advised you to remain indoors chiefly on account of the
weather. It is raining hard!"
"I am glad it is!" she replied, with the manner of one bereft of
human sympathy, and extracting gloomy delight from the unison of
nature with her morbid broodings. "And my throat isn't nearly so
painful as I made Aunt Mary believe. I did not want to go out.
Parties are an awful bore when one is sad-hearted."
"You really must forgive me!" said Frederic, as she twitched her
face away again at the laugh he could not suppress. "But sadness and
you should not be thought of in the same week. Honestly, now! is not
the inimitable fabric you sported for five minutes last night, at
the bottom of what appears to you a fathomless abyss of woe? Have
you tried the efficacy of rational consolation in the thought of how
many more parties there will be this winter to which you can wear
it? The Secretary of State is to give one in ten days, which is to
be the sensation of the season. That of to-night is, in comparison,
as a caucus to a general convention."
"I shall never put on the hateful thing again. If Julia Cunningham
chooses to bedizen herself in it, she is welcome to it--flounces and
all. Yet I did like it! I had hoped--but no matter what! You had
better be going, Mr. Chilton. Aunt and the rest of them wenl
three-quarters of an hour ago."
"Does a dress go out of fashion in so short a time?" persisted
innocent Frederic, bent upon mitigating her sorrow. "If my memory
serves me aright, I have seen ladies wear the same ball-dress
several times in the same winter."
"You will never see this on me," snapped Rosa, her eyes ominously
fiery again. "Did you hear me advise you of the lateness of the
hour?"
"Suppose I decline appearing at all in the festal scene?" said the
gentleman. "I shall not be missed. I will just run down and dismiss
the carriage--then, with your permission, will return and spend the
evening here."
Her cheeks looked as if they had been touched with wet vermilion,
when he resumed his place near her, and the folds of the
handkerchief in her hand hung more limply.