AT a quarter of eight o'clock, when Caroline was waiting to be called, Mrs. Timberlake came in to ask if she might fasten her dress.
"Oh, you're all hooked and ready," she remarked. "I suppose nurses learn to be punctual."
"They have to be, so much depends on it."
"Well, you look sweet. I've brought you a red rose from the table. It will lighten up that black dress a little."
"I don't often go to dinner parties," said Caroline while she pinned on the rose. "Will there be many people?" There was no shyness in her voice or manner; and it seemed to Mrs. Timberlake that the black gown, with its straight, slim skirt, which had not quite gone out of fashion, made her appear taller and more dignified. Her hair, brushed smoothly back from her forehead, gave to her clear profile the look of some delicate etching. There was a faint flush in her cheeks, and her eyes were richer and bluer than they had looked in the afternoon. She was a woman, not a girl, and her charm was the charm not of ignorance, but of intelligence, wisdom, and energy.
"Only twelve," answered the housekeeper, "sometimes we have as many as twenty." There was an expression of pain in her eyes, due to chronic neuralgia, and while she spoke she pressed her fingers to her temples.
"Is Mr. Wythe coming?" asked Caroline.
"He always comes. It is so hard to find unattached men that the same ones get invited over and over. Then there are Mr. and Mrs. Chalmers. They are from New York and the dinner is given to them—and the Ashburtons and Robert Colfax and his wife—who was Daisy Carter—she is very good looking but a little flighty—and Mr. Peyton, old Mrs. Colfax's brother."
"I know—'Brother Charles'—but who are the Ashburtons?"
"Colonel Ashburton is very amusing. He is on Mr. Blackburn's side in politics, and they are great friends. His wife is dull, but she means well, and she is useful on committees because she is a good worker and never knows when she is put upon. Well, it's time for you to go down, I reckon. I just ran up from the pantry to see if I could help you."
A minute later, when Caroline left her room, Mary Blackburn joined her, and the two went downstairs together. Mary was wearing a lovely gown of amber silk, and she looked so handsome that Caroline scarcely recognized her. Her black hair, piled on the crown of her head, gave her, in spite of her modern dash and frankness, a striking resemblance to one of the old portraits at The Cedars. She was in high spirits, for the ride with Alan had left her glowing with happiness.
"We'd better hustle. They are waiting for us," she said. "I was late getting in, so I tossed on the first dress I could find."
Then she ran downstairs, and Caroline, following her more slowly, found herself presently shaking hands with the dreaded David Blackburn. He was so quiet and unassuming that only when he had taken her hand and had asked her a few conventional questions about her trip, did she realize that she was actually speaking to him. In evening clothes, surrounded by the pink silk walls of Angelica's drawing-room, his face looked firmer and harder than it had appeared in the motor; but even in this extravagant setting, he impressed her as more carefully dressed and groomed than the average Virginian of her acquaintance. She saw now that he was younger than she had at first thought; he couldn't, she surmised, be much over forty. There were deep lines in his forehead; his features had settled into the granite-like immobility that is acquired only through grim and resolute struggle; and his dark, carefully brushed hair showed a silvery gloss on the temples—yet these things, she realized, were the marks of battles, not of years. What struck her most was the quickness with which the touch of arrogance in his expression melted before the engaging frankness of his smile.
"I'm glad you've come. I hope you will get on with Letty," he said; and then, as he turned away, the vision of Angelica, in white chiffon and pearls, floated toward her from a group by the fireplace.
"Colonel Ashburton is an old friend of your mother's, Miss Meade. He took her to her first cotillion, and he is eager to meet her daughter." There followed swift introductions to the Ashburtons, the Chalmers, and the Colfaxes; and not until Caroline was going into the dining-room on the arm of Mrs. Colfax's "Brother Charles," was she able to distinguish between the stranger from New York, who looked lean and wiry and strenuous, and the white-haired old gentleman who had taken her mother to the cotillion. She was not confused; and yet her one vivid impression was of Angelica, with her pale Madonna head, her soft grey eyes under thick lashes, and her lovely figure in draperies of chiffon that flowed and rippled about her.
Though the house was an inappropriate setting for David Blackburn, it was, for all its newness and ornate accessories, the perfect frame for his wife's beauty. She reminded Caroline of the allegorical figure of Spring in one of the tapestries on the dining-room walls—only she was so much softer, so much more ethereal, as if the floral image had come to life and been endowed with a soul. It was the rare quality of Mrs. Blackburn's beauty that in looking at her one thought first of her spirit—of the sweetness and goodness which informed and animated her features. The appeal she made was the appeal of an innocent and beautiful creature who is unhappy. Against the background of an unfortunate marriage, she moved with the resigned and exalted step of a Christian martyr.
Sitting silently between the flippant "Brother Charles" and the imposing Colonel Ashburton, who was still talking of her mother, Caroline tried to follow the conversation while she studied the faces and the dresses of the women. Mrs. Chalmers, who was large and handsome in a superb gown of green velvet, appeared heavy and indifferent, and Mrs. Ashburton, an over-earnest middle-aged woman, with a classic profile and a look of impersonal yet hungry philanthropy, was so detached that she seemed, when she spoke, to be addressing an invisible audience. In spite of her regular features and her flawless complexion, she was as devoid of charm as an organized charity. On her right sat Allan Wythe, a clean-cut, good-looking chap, with romantic eyes and the air of a sportsman. Though Caroline had heard that he wrote plays, she thought that he needed only a gun and a dog to complete his appearance. "He is the only good-looking man here," she concluded. "Some people might think Mr. Blackburn good-looking, but I suppose I know too much about him." And she remembered that her father had said a man's character always showed in his mouth.
Next to Alan there was Mrs. Robert Colfax—a beautiful Spanish-looking creature, straight as a young poplar, and as full of silvery lights and shadows. She had no sooner sat down than she began to ask Angelica, with an agreeable though flighty animation, if she had seen somebody since he had come back from his wedding trip? For the next quarter of an hour they kept up an excited interchange of gossip, while Mr. Chalmers listened with polite attention, and Caroline tried in vain to discover who the unknown person was, and why his wedding trip should interest anybody so profoundly.
"Well, I never thought he'd get another wife after his last misadventure," rippled Mrs. Colfax, "but they tell me he had only to wink an eyelash. I declare I don't know a more discouraging spectacle than the men that some women will marry."
At the other end of the table, Mrs. Blackburn was talking in a low voice to Mr. Chalmers, and the broken clauses of her conversation were punctuated by the laughter of the irrepressible Daisy, who was never silent. Though Angelica was not brilliant, though she never said anything clever enough for one to remember, she had what her friends called "a sweet way of talking," and a flattering habit, when she was with a man, of ending every sentence with a question. "I'm sure I don't see how we are to keep out of this war, do you, Mr. Chalmers?" or "I think the simplest way to raise money would be by some tableaux, don't you, Colonel Ashburton?"; and still a little later there floated to Caroline, "I tell Mary she rides too much. Don't you think it is a pity for a woman to spend half her life in the saddle? Of course if she hasn't anything else to do—but in this age, don't you feel, there are so many opportunities of service?"
"Oh, when it comes to that," protested Mrs. Colfax, in the tone of airy banter she affected, "There are many more of us trying to serve than there are opportunities of service. I was telling mother only the other day that I couldn't see a single war