"Who would ever suppose that father didn't like company? Whoever would think that you could be afraid of father!"
Suave, eloquent, Carew beamed upon his guests, and his little daughter admired him extravagantly. His hair and beard were beautiful. Touching the medal on his breast, Carew said--
"Yes, Carez, Andalusian, I believe, to be turned later in England into Carew; and the bas-relief is an excellent bit of sculpturing."
Mr. Carew undid the medal and handed it to the guest on his right.
"Here, Cedersholm, what do you think of the bas-relief?"
Cedersholm, already famous in New York, faced Bella Carew and she saw him plainly. This was the sculptor who could give Cousin Antony his start, "his fair chance." He did not look a great man, as Bella thought geniuses should look; not one of the guests looked as great and beautiful as Cousin Antony. Why didn't they have him to the dinner, she wondered loyally. Hasn't he got money enough? Perhaps because he was lame.
Jetty was lame. He had broken his leg in the bars once upon a time. How he sang! From his throat poured one ecstatic roulade after another, one cascade after another of liquid delicious sweetness. Fields, woods, copses, and dells; sunlight, moonlight, seas and streams, all, all were in Jetty's passion of song.
Gardiner had left his sister's side and stood under the bird-cage gazing up with an enraptured face. He made a pretty, quaint figure in the deserted room, in his gingham apron and his untidy blonde hair.
Bella heard some one say, "What wonderful singing, Mrs. Carew." And she looked at her mother for the first time. The lady was all in white with a bit of old black point crossed at her breast and a red camellia fastened there. Her soft fine hair was unpretentiously drawn away neatly, and her doe-like eyes rested amiably on her guests. She seemed to enjoy her unwonted entertainment.
Still Bella clung to her hiding-place, fascinated by the subdued noise of the service, the clinking of the glasses, listening intelligently to a clever raconteur when he told his anecdote, and clapping her hand on her mouth to keep from joining aloud in the praise that followed, and the bead of excitement mounted to her head like the wine that filled the glasses, the engraved deer and pheasant glasses, three of which had been massacred upstairs. The dinner had nearly reached its end when the children slipped down, and the scraping of chairs and a lull made Bella realize where she was, and when she escaped she found that Gardiner had made his little journey upstairs without her guardianship. Bella's mind was working rapidly, for her heart was on fire with a scheme. In her bright dress she leaned close to the dark wainscoting of the stairway and heard Jetty sing. How he sang! _That_ was music!