Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/769

1868.] it fed something far deeper than my vanity. The first interruption came from the servant. "Miss Esther, the carriage is waiting for you at the door." "Miss Esther," raised her eyes, and that was about all. "Tell him he may go, I shall not want him," she answered, after a moment's pause, as though it were against her will that she roused even her voice sufficiently to speak. "I intended to go home in time to dress for the opera," she presently explained, after apparently resting from the exertion of her previous sentence; "but I find now that I would rather stay where I am." The throb of triumphant delight which went over me at her words must have found its way into my eyes; for I saw her give a quick, startled movement, and suddenly she flushed in a manner which, I think, astonished her more than it did me. Then she retreated still further into the soft depths of her chair, and was absolutely silent. In a few moments though, Mrs. Conway came from upstairs, and John from the outer world; and we had hot coffee around the fire, which waked us up and set us all talking. Miss Glenn's rest seemed to have refreshed her to just a delicious degree of strength and spirits, for she began bantering John with the mischievous glee of a child, until, in answering his call for aid against the enemy, I happened to stumble over one of her pet theories. Then she warmed up into honest seriousness; and, losing all self-consciousness as we stoutly fought over the whole ground, rose into almost bitter earnestness. So the hours went by until nearly midnight.

Just as I was leaving, that delightful Mrs. Conway said: "Mr. Dulaney, Esther and I will be here alone to-morrow morning ('Esther' looked up with a slight astonishment in her face at hearing her time thus disposed of, but made no further protest); suppose you come up and lunch with us, and bring that novel you promised?" "With all my heart, Mrs. Conway," I answered, with the utmost sincerity, although a consciousness had flashed upon me that in this very note-book there was a memorandum of an important business engagement at that hour. I went through a swift mental calculation of how I could put the man off, which chiefly resulted in a determination to disappoint him downrightly if I could do no better, and then I again warmly accepted Mrs. Conway's invitation.

It was with considerable trepidation that I rang that bell next morning. I knew that a solitary man, thrown with a greater number of women (even so small a predominance as two), finds his position intensely agreeable or intensely disagreeable. There is no medium possible. They either band against him voluntarily or involuntarily, until he- is overwhelmed with a sense of being a wretched outsider, totally unequal to the circumstances, or they make a centre of him, round which they gather, unconsciously joining to render him a certain homage in right of his stronger sex. He either gets nothing, or he gets all. Which my lot was to be I was afraid to predict, even to myself.

The servant asked me straight into the dining-room. Mrs. Conway was standing by the fire, while Miss Glenn sat at the table, gravely mixing something in a dish. The married lady said "Good morning," but the other did not even look up. "Mr. Dulaney," she said, instead, speaking precisely as though the night before were the moment before, and she were finishing some remark which had then been interrupted, "Nelly and I have come to the conclusion that when a man, with something to really do in the world, wastes his time for the benefit of two idle women, he deserves to be rewarded; so I have made you a positively celestial dressing for your oysters." I gave her merry thanks in return, complimenting her upon her admirable sense of justice, and sat down to the table with