Marriage à la mode | Page 4

there was a crowd and rush which
set the General's temper on edge. He emerged from it, hot and
breathless, after haranguing the functionary at the gates on the
inadequacy of the arrangements and the likelihood of an accident. Then
he and Roger strode up the steep path, beside beds of blue periwinkles,
and under old trees just bursting into leaf. A spring sunshine was in the
air and on the grass, which had already donned its "livelier emerald."
The air quivered with heat, and the blue dome of sky diffused it. Here
and there a magnolia in full flower on the green slopes spread its
splendour of white or pinkish blossom to the sun; the great river,
shimmering and streaked with light, swept round the hill, and out into a

pearly distance; and on the height the old pillared house with its
flanking colonnades stood under the thinly green trees in a sharp light
and shade which emphasized all its delightful qualities--made, as it
were, the most of it, in response to the eagerness of the crowd now
flowing round it.
Half-way up the hill Roger suddenly raised his hat.
"Who is it?" said the General, putting up his eyeglass.
"The girl we met last night and her brother."
"Captain Boyson? So it is. They seem to have a party with them."
The lady whom young Barnes had greeted moved toward the
Englishmen, followed by her brother.
"I didn't know we were to meet to-day," she said gaily, with a mocking
look at Roger. "I thought you said you were bored--and going back to
New York."
Roger was relieved to see that his uncle, engaged in shaking hands with
the American officer, had not heard this remark. Tact was certainly not
Miss Boyson's strong point.
"I am sure I never said anything of the kind," he said, looking brazenly
down upon her; "nothing in the least like it."
"Oh! oh!" the lady protested, with an extravagant archness. "Mrs.
Phillips, this is Mr. Barnes. We were just talking of him, weren't we?"
An elderly lady, quietly dressed in gray silk, turned, bowed, and looked
curiously at the Englishman.
"I hear you and Miss Boyson discovered some common friends last
night."
"We did, indeed. Miss Boyson posted me up in a lot of the people I
have been seeing in New York. I am most awfully obliged to her," said

Barnes. His manner was easy and forthcoming, the manner of one
accustomed to feel himself welcome and considered.
"I behaved like a walking 'Who's Who,' only I was much more
interesting, and didn't tell half as many lies," said the girl, in a high
penetrating voice. "Daphne, let me introduce you to Mr. Barnes. Mr.
Barnes--Miss Floyd; Mr. Barnes--Mrs. Verrier."
Two ladies beyond Mrs. Phillips made vague inclinations, and young
Barnes raised his hat. The whole party walked on up the hill. The
General and Captain Boyson fell into a discussion of some military
news of the morning. Roger Barnes was mostly occupied with Miss
Boyson, who had a turn for monopoly; and he could only glance
occasionally at the two ladies with Mrs. Phillips. But he was conscious
that the whole group made a distinguished appearance. Among the
hundreds of young women streaming over the lawn they were clearly
marked out by their carriage and their clothes--especially their
clothes--as belonging to the fastidious cosmopolitan class, between
whom and the young school-teachers from the West, in their white
cotton blouses, leathern belts, and neat short skirts, the links were few.
Miss Floyd, indeed, was dressed with great simplicity. A white muslin
dress, à la Romney, with a rose at the waist, and a black-and-white
Romney hat deeply shading the face beneath--nothing could have been
plainer; yet it was a simplicity not to be had for the asking, a calculated,
a Parisian simplicity; while her companion, Mrs. Verrier, was attired in
what the fashion-papers would have called a "creation in mauve." And
Roger knew quite enough about women's dress to be aware that it was a
creation that meant dollars. She was a tall, dark-eyed, olive-skinned
woman, thin almost to emaciation: and young Barnes noticed that,
while Miss Floyd talked much, Mrs. Verrier answered little, and smiled
less. She moved with a languid step, and looked absently about her.
Roger could not make up his mind whether she was American or
English.
In the house itself the crowd was almost unmanageable. The General's
ire was roused afresh when he was warned off the front door by the
polite official on guard, and made to mount a back stair in the midst of

a panting multitude.
"I really cannot congratulate you on your management of these affairs,"
he said severely to Captain Boyson, as they stood at last, breathless and
hustled, on the first-floor landing. "It