She stood pensive a moment in the moonlight. Drake and Cecilia, drawn together by the feeling of superiority they shared in common--and which I had helped to point out--wandered off together. Almington was absorbed in an open and impertinent admiration of Mrs. Massingbyrd's beauty, and Felicia and I gazed at her, and again Felicia said, approvingly: "It's an unfair advantage to take--but it's really worth it!"
Then the dreamy look in lovely Mrs. Massingbyrd's eyes deepened, and she opened her lovely lips and said:
"Felicia, I'm so desperately hungry that I wouldn't coast down that hill again--not for anything! Did you say you had something good for supper?"
"And at supper I shall ask my boon," Almington answered.
"Boon?" said Mrs. Massingbyrd, as she watched Cecilia and Drake vanish together in the moonlight among the flowers. "Boon? You greedy person! Isn't it boon enough to have seen me with my hair down by moonlight! I wonder at your graspingness, Jack Almington!"
After we had said good-night to our guests, after Cecilia and Drake had at last come in from an interminable talk on the piazza, after Mrs. Massingbyrd had stuffed herself--in the face of her ethereal loveliness I hate to use such a word, but I know no other; indeed, she applied herself to supper with such a fair, frank and honest appetite that she had neither eyes nor ears for Almington's compliments--after all this was over, Felicia turned to me with a look of satisfaction.
"You played up nobly that time, Robert," she said. "I've never known you to catch on so quickly and without a word from anyone."
I gained time with remarking, pathetically, "You've always underrated my intelligence."
"I call it a thoroughly artistic performance," my wife said; "and the beauty of it is that there was no talk, no nothing, but each one doing his work."
I looked at Felicia, to see if by any chance she was making a pitfall for me, but there was no danger signal. I thought it safe to give out, "I'm glad you liked my little share in it."
"You were splendid," she cried, cordially. "And if Miss Bennett only knew it, we deserve a vote of thanks from her."
"Yes, don't we?" I took care not to commit myself.
"It isn't as if we hadn't provided Cecilia with another suitor, and I'm sure Ellery Drake, from any point of view, is far more desirable than Almington."