With Charles and Imogene had come a famous doctor from the city, Hamilton’s friend, Doctor Bryson. Alice protested she could not come down. Dolly told her she "simply must." The controversy upset Alice but she had at last to give way. She bathed her face in cold water and her husband deceived her with assurances that her eyes showed no traces of tears.
Very uncertain about them, she followed MacBirney down, taking refuge at once in a corner with Imogene.
While the two were talking, Grace De Castro and Larrie Morgan came in, bringing some young friends. "Aren’t they the nicest couple?" exclaimed Alice as they crossed the room.
"It is a blessing they are," said Imogene. "You see, Grace will probably succeed to the De Castro fortune, and Larrie is likely sometime to have the Kimberly burdens. It crushes me to think that Charles and I have no children."
"Are you so fond of children?" Alice asked wistfully.
"Indeed I am, too fond of them. I lost my only child, a baby girl----"
"If Robert would marry, we should have a family hope there," continued Imogene. "But I am afraid he never will. How did you enjoy your evening at The Towers?"
"Isn’t Robert a good host? I love to see him preside. And he hasn’t given a dinner before for years."
Imogene laid her hand gently on Alice’s. "It is a long story, dear, a tragedy came into his life--into all our lives, in fact. It changed him greatly."
Soon after the MacBirneys came down, the Nelsons arrived on the scene and the company moved to a south room to get the breeze. Imogene talked with Alice and MacBirney, but Kimberly joined them and listened, taking part at intervals in the conversation.
When Imogene’s attention was taken by MacBirney, Robert, asking Alice if she got the air from the cooling windows, moved her chair to where the breeze could be felt more perceptibly. "I hope you haven’t had bad news to-night," he said, taking a seat on a divan near her.
She understood instantly that her eyes had not escaped his scrutiny, but concealed her annoyance as best she could. "No, indeed. But I had some exciting news to-night."
"Oh, I mayn’t tell, may I? I am not supposed to know anything, am I?"
Her little uncertainty and appeal made her charmingly pretty, he thought, as he watched her. The traces in her eyes of tears attracted him more than anything he had seen before. Her first little air of annoyed defiance and her effort to throw him off the track, all interested him, and her appeal now, made in a manner that plainly said she was aware the secret of the news was his own, pleased him.