Page:The Berkeleys and their neighbors.djvu/54

 "There is plenty to do. I have a dozen servants to manage that ran wild while we were away—and the house to keep, and to look after the garden—and I ride or drive every day—and keep up my piano playing—and read a little. What do you do?"

"Nothing," answered Pembroke, boldly.

Olivia did not say a word. She threw him one brief glance though, from her dark eyes that conveyed a volume.

"I have a license to practice law," he continued, coolly. "I've had it for five years—got it just before the State went out, when I went out too. Four years' soldiering isn't a good preparation for the law."

"Ah!" said Olivia.

"I have enough left, I daresay, to keep me without work," he added.

If he had studied how to make himself contemptible in Olivia's eyes, he could not have done so more completely. She had acquired perfect self-possession of manner, but her mobile face was as yet undisciplined. When to this last remark she said in her sweetest manner, "Won't you let Petrarch fill your glass?" it was equivalent to saying, "You are the most worthless and contemptible creature on this planet." Just then the Colonel's cheery voice resounded from the foot of the table.

"Pembroke, when I drove through the Court House to-day, it made me feel like a young man again, to see your father's old tin sign hanging out