Her interruption of the tableau sounded oddly abrupt to ears used to
her pleasant accents.
"Come, young people! how long are you going to keep me waiting?
Breakfast is cooling fast!"
"I beg your pardon, Auntie! I did not notice that it had been
brought in," apologized Mabel, drawing back, that Frederic might
lift the loaded salver carefully to its place upon the board.
As they were closing about this, they were joined by Messrs.
Barksdale and Branch, Miss Tabb delaying her appearance until the
repast was nearly over, and meeting the raillery of the party upon
her late rising with the sweet, soft smile her cousin-betrothed
admired as the indication of unadulterated amiability. The
breakfast-hour, always pleasant, was to-day particularly merry. Rosa
led off in the laughing debates, the play of repartee, friendly
jest, and anecdote that incited all to mirth and speech and tempted
them to linger around the table long after the business of the meal
wag concluded.
"This is the perfection of country life!" said Frederic Chilton,
when, at last, there was a movement to end the sitting. "But it
spoils one fearfully for the everyday practicalities of the city--a
Northern city, especially."
"Better stay where you are, then, instead of deserting our ranks
to-morrow," suggested Rosa, gliding by his side out upon the long
portico at the end of the house. "What does your nature crave that
Ridgeley cannot supply?"
"Work, and a career!"
"You still feel the need of these?" significantly.
"Otherwise I were no man!"
"You are right!"
Her disdainful eyes wandered to the farther end of the portico,
where Alfred Branch, in his natty suit of white grasscloth, plucked
at his ebon whiskers with untanned fingers, and talked society
nothings with the ever-complaisant Imogene.
"Come what may, you, Mr. Chilton, have occupation for thought and
hands; are not tied down to a detestable routine of vapid pleasures
and common-place people!"
"You are--every independent woman and man--is as free in this
respect as myself, Miss Rosa. None need be a slave to
conventionality unless he choose."
She made a gesture that was like twisting a chain apon her wrist.
"You know you are not sincere in saying that. I wondered, moreover,
when you were railing at the practicalities of city life, if you
were learning, like the rest of the men, to accommodate your talk to
your audience. Where is the use of your trying to disguise the truth
that all women are slaves? I used to envy you when I was in
Philadelphia, last winter, when you pleaded business engagements as
an excuse for declining invitations to dinner-parties and balls.
Now, if a woman defies popular decrees by refusing to exhibit
herself for the popular entertainment, the horrible whisper is
forthwith circulated that she has been 'disappointed,' and is hiding
her green wound in her sewing-room or oratory. 'Disappointed,'
forsooth! That is what they say of every girl who is not married to
somebody by the time she is twenty-five. It matters not whether she
cares for him or not. Having but one object in existence, there can
be but one species of disappointment. Marry she must, or be PITIED!"
with a stinging emphasis on the last word.