XXIX.
A family of rich people in the country, apart from intellectualinterests, is apt to gormandise; and the Maverings always sat down to aluxurious table, which was most abundant and tempting at the meal theycalled tea, when the invention of the Portuguese man-cook was taxedto supply the demands of appetites at once eager and fastidious. Theyprolonged the meal as much as possible in winter, and Dan used to liketo get home just in time for tea when he came up from Harvard; it wasalways very jolly, and he brought a boy's hunger to its abundance. Thedining-room, full of shining light, and treated from the low-downgrate, was a pleasant place. But now his spirits failed to rise withthe physical cheer; he was almost bashfully silent; he sat cowed in thepresence of his sisters, and careworn in the place where he used to beso gay and bold. They were waiting to have him begin about himself, ashe always did when he had been away, and were ready to sympathise withhis egotism, whatever new turn it took. He mystified them by askingabout them and their affairs, and by dealing in futile generalities,instead of launching out with any business that he happened at the timeto be full of. But he did not attend to their answers to his questions;he was absent-minded, and only knew that his face was flushed, and thathe was obviously ill at ease.
His younger sister turned from him impatiently at last. "Father, what isthe matter with Dan?"
Her bold recognition of their common constraint broke it down. Danlooked at his father with helpless consent, and his father said quietly,"He tells me he's engaged."
"What nonsense!" said his sister Eunice.
"Why, Dan!" cried Minnie; and he felt a reproach in her words which thewords did not express. A silence followed, in which the father alongwent on with his supper. The girls sat staring at Dan with incredulouseyes. He became suddenly angry.
"I don't know what's so very extraordinary about it, or why there shouldbe such a pother," he began; and he knew that he was insolently ignoringabundant reasons for pother, if there had been any pother. "Yes, I'mengaged."
He expected now that they would believe him, and ask whom he was engagedto; but apparently they were still unable to realise it. He was obligedto go on. "I'm engaged to Miss Pasmer."
"To Miss Pasmer!" repeated Eunice.
"But I thought--" Minnie began, and then stopped.
Dan commanded his temper by a strong effort, and condescended toexplain. "There was a misunderstanding, but it's all right now; I onlymet her yesterday, and--it's all right." He had to keep on ignoring whathad passed between him and his sisters during the month he spent at homeafter his return from Campobello. He did not wish to do so; he wouldhave been glad to laugh over that epoch of ill-concealed heart-breakwith them; but the way they had taken the fact of his engagement made itimpossible. He was forced to keep them at a distance; they forced him."I'm glad," he added bitterly, "that the news seems to be so agreeableto my family. Thank you for your cordial congratulations." He swalloweda large cup of tea, and kept looking down.
"How silly!" said Eunice, who was much the oldest of the three. "Didyou expect us to fall upon your neck before we could believe it wasn't ahoax of father's?"
"A hoax!" Dan burst out.
"I suppose," said Minnie, with mock meekness, "that if we're to bedevoured, it's no use saying we didn't roil the brook. I'm sure Icongratulate you, Dan, with all my heart," she added, with a tremblingvoice.
"I congratulate Miss Pasmer," said Eunice, "on securing such a veryreasonable husband."
When Eunice first became a young lady she was so much older than Danthat in his mother's absence she sometimes authorised herself to box hisears, till she was finally overthrown in battle by the growing boy. Shestill felt herself so much his tutelary genius that she could not letthe idea of his engagement awe her, or keep her from giving him a neededlesson. Dan jumped to his feet, and passionately threw his napkin on hischair.
"There, that will do, Eunice!" interposed the father. "Sit down, Dan,and don't be an ass, if you are engaged. Do you expect to come up herewith a bombshell in your pocket, and explode it among us without causingany commotion? We all desire your happiness, and we are glad if youthink you've found it, but we want to have time to realise it. We hadonly adjusted our minds to the apparent fact that you hadn't found itwhen you were here before." His father began very severely, but when heended with this recognition of what they had all blinked till then, theylaughed together.
"My pillow isn't dry yet, with the tears I shed for you, Dan," saidMinnie demurely.
"I shall have to countermand my mourning," said Eunice, "and wear loudercolours than ever. Unless," she added, "Miss Pasmer changes her mindagain."
This divination of the past gave them all a chance for another laugh,and Dan's sisters began to reconcile themselves to the fact ofhis engagement, if not to Miss Pasmer. In what was abstractly sodisagreeable there was the comfort that they could joke about hishappiness; they had not felt free to make light of his misery when hewas at home before. They began to ask all the questions they could thinkof as to how and when, and they assimilated the fact more and more inacquiring these particulars and making a mock of them and him.
"Of course you haven't got her photograph," suggested Eunice. "You knowwe've never had the pleasure of meeting the young lady yet."
"Yes," Dan owned, blushing, "I have. She thought I might like to show itto mother: But it isn't--"
"A very good one--they never are," said Minnie.
"And it was taken several years ago--they always are," said Eunice.
"And she doesn't photograph well, anyway."
"And this one was just after a long fit of sickness."
Dan drew it out of his pocket, after some fumbling for it, while hetolerated their gibes.
Eunice put her nose to it. "I hope it's your cigarettes it smells of,"she said.
"Yes; she doesn't use the weed," answered Dan.
"Oh, I didn't mean that, exactly," returned his sister, holding thepicture off at arm's length, and viewing it critically with contractedeyes.
Dan could not help laughing. "I don't think it's been near any othercigar-case," he answered tranquilly.
Minnie looked at it very near to, covering all but the face with herhand. "Dan, she's lovely!" she cried, and Dan's heart leaped into histhroat As he gratefully met his sister's eyes.
"You'll like her, Min."
Eunice took the photograph from her for a second scrutiny. "She'scertainly very stylish. Rather a beak of a nose, and a little toobird--like on the whole. But she isn't so bad. Is it like her?" sheasked with a glance at her father.
"I might say--after looking," he replied.
"True! I didn't know but Dan had shown it to you as soon as you met. Heseemed to be in such a hurry to let us all know."
The father said, "I don't think it flatters her," and he looked at itmore carefully. "Not much of her mother there?" he suggested to Dan.
"No, sir; she's more like her father."
"Well, after all this excitement, I believe I'll have another cup oftea, and take something to eat, if Miss Pasmer's photograph doesn'tobject," said Eunice, and she replenished her cup and plate.
"What coloured hair and eyes has she, Dan?" asked Minnie.
He had to think so as to be exact. "Well, you might say they were black,her eyebrows are so dark. But I believe they're a sort of greyish-blue."
"Not an uncommon colour for eyes," said Eunice, "but rather peculiar forhair."
They got to making fun of the picture, and Dan told them about Alice andher family; the father left them at the table, and then came back withword from Dan's mother that she was ready to see him.
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