Nothing could be more apparent than the pride and affection with which Mr. Marchand regarded his sister. Was there, indeed, a skeleton at this feast? The doctor shuddered as he asked himself the question. All his faculties were on the alert to deny and disprove the possibility of the presence of the hideous visitor. His sympathies were too keenly enlisted to be willing to acknowledge its existence even in the background of that day or the days to come to that household. Yet, ever and anon, in the midst of their joyousness, a strange look would leap from the quick, dark eyes of St. Victor, as he fixed them upon his sister's face, and an expression would flit across his own face inscrutable to the watchful physician. With a slight motion of his hand or head he would arrest and direct the doctor's attention, who would then perceive Miss Marchand's luminous glance changing into a look expressive of anxiety and terror, the glow of her cheeks fading into a pallor like that of one in a swoon. But, strange! an instant would change it all. The pallor, lingering but a moment, would melt away as a mist before the sun, and the roses would come back to the cheeks again in all their rosiness. The host would divert his companion's startled attention by gracefully pressing the viands upon his notice, or by some brilliant sally, so scintillating with wit or droll wisdom, as to have brought the smile to an anchorite's eyes.
"I pray you watch her! Did you not notice that slight incoherency?" he remarked, in a whisper, leaning over toward the doctor.
The doctor had noticed nothing but the playful badinage of a happy girl.
"I am afraid her loveliness blinds my judgment. I _must_ see what there is in all this," he answered to himself, deprecatingly.
They sat long at table. Not that any one ate to excess, though the pompous English steward served up one delicious dish after another, including the time-honored Christmas feast requisite,--the plum-pudding,--which was tasted and approved, not to wound the Briton's national and professional vanity, but sent off, but slightly shorn of its proportions, to grace the servants' table.
The guest noticed that St. Victor partook very sparingly of food, although he fully enjoyed the occasion. Save tasting of the wild game and its condiment of real Calcutta currie, he ate nothing of the leading dishes or _entrées_. Neither did he drink much wine, whose quality was of the rarest, being of his own stock drawn from his father's rich store in his Madeira cellar. Of the luscious grapes and oranges which formed a leading feature of the dessert, he partook more freely, as if they cooled his tongue. That there was fever, and nervous excitement, in the young man's frame, was evident. Indeed, to the doctor's observant eye, the brother appeared more delicate, and of a temperament more highly nervous than his sister.