as they enter, mirth ceases. a remarkable silence falls upon the group. everybody looks at anything but violet and her companion.
these last advance in a leisurely manner up the room, yet with somewhat of the sneaking air of those who are in the possession of embarrassing news that must be told before much time goes by. the thought of this perhaps deadens their perception and makes them blind to the fact that the others are unnaturally quiet.
"it has been such a charming day," says violet, at last, in a rather mechanical tone. yet, in spite of its stiltedness, it breaks the spell of consternation and confusion that has bound the others in its chains, and restores them to speech.
they all smile, and say, "yes, indeed," or "oh, yes, indeed," or plain "yes," in a breath. they all feel intensely obliged to violet for her very ordinary little remark.
then it is enchanting to watch the petit soins, the delicate little attentions that the women in a carefully suppressed fashion lavish upon the bride-elect,—as she already is to them. there is nothing under heaven so dear to a woman's heart as a happy love-affair,—except, indeed, it be an unhappy one. just get a woman to understand you have broken or are breaking (the last is the best) your heart about any one, and she will be your friend on the spot. it is so unutterably sweet to her to be a confidante in any secret where dan cupid holds first place.
mona, rising, pushes violet gently into her own chair, a little black-and-gold wicker thing, gaudily cushioned.
"yes, sit there," she says, a new note of tender sympathy in her tone, keeping her hand on violet's shoulder as the latter makes some faint polite effort to rise again. "you must indeed. it is such a dear, cosey, comfortable little chair."
why it has become suddenly necessary that violet should be made cosey and comfortable she omits to explain.
then dorothy, going up to the new-comer, removes her hat from her head, and pats her cheeks, and tells her with one of her loveliest smiles that she has "such a delicious color, dearest! just like a wee bit of fresh apple-blossom!"
apple-blossom suggests the orchard, whereon violet reddens perceptibly, and nolly grows cold with fright, and feels a little more will make him faint.
lastly, lady rodney comes to the front with,—
"you have not tired yourself, dear, i hope. the day has been so oppressively warm, more like july than may. would you like your tea now, violet? we can have it half an hour earner if you wish."
all these evidences of affection violet notices in a dreamy, far-off fashion: she is the happier because of them; yet she only appreciates them languidly, being filled with one absorbing thought, that dulls all others. she accepts the chair, the compliment, and the tea with grace, but with somewhat vague gratitude.
to jack his brothers are behaving with the utmost bonhommie. they have called him "old fellow" twice, and once geoffrey has slapped him on the back with a heartiness well meant, and no doubt encouraging, but trying.
and jack is greatly pleased with them, and, seeing everything just now through a rose-colored veil, tells him self he is specially blessed in his own people, and that geoffrey and old nick are two of the decentest old men alive. yet he too is a little distrait, being lost in an endeavor to catch violet's eyes,—which eyes refuse persistently to be so caught.
nolly alone of all the group stands aloof, joining not at all in the unspoken congratulations, and feeling indeed like nothing but the guilty culprit that he is.
"how you were all laughing when we came in!" says violet, presently: "we could hear you all along the corridor. what was it about?"
everybody at this smiles involuntarily,—everybody, that is, except nolly, who feels faint again, and turns a rich and lively crimson.
"it was some joke, of course?" goes on violet, not having received any answer to her first question.
"it was," says nicholas, feeling a reply can no longer be shirked. then he says, "ahem!" and turns his glance confidingly upon the carpet.
but geoffrey to whom the situation has its charm, takes up the broken thread.
"it was one of nolly's good things," he says, genially. "and you know what he is capable of when he likes! it was funny to the last degree,—calculated to set any 'table in a roar.'—give it to us again, nolly—it bears repeating.—ask him to tell it to you, violet."
"yes, do, nolly," says violet.
"go on, noll," exclaims dorothy, in her most encouraging tone. "let violet hear it. she will understand it."
"i would, of course, with pleasure," stammers the unfortunate nolly,—"only perhaps violet heard it before!"
"well, really, do you know, i think she did!" says mona, so demurely that they all smile again.
"i call this beastly mean," says mr. darling to geoffrey in an indignant aside. "you all gave your oaths to secrecy before i began, and now you are determined to betray me, i call it right-down shabby. and i sha'n't forget it to any of you, let me tell you that."
"my dear fellow, you can't have forgotten it so soon," says geoffrey, pretending to misunderstand this vehement whisper. "don't be shy! or shall i refresh your memory? it was, you remember, about——"
"oh, yes—yes—i know; it doesn't matter; (i'll pay you out for this"), says nolly, savagely, in an aside.
"well, i do like a good story," says violet, carelessly.
"then nolly's last will suit you down to the ground," says nicholas. "besides its wit, it possesses the rare quality of being strictly true. it really occurred. it is founded on fact. he himself vouches for the truth of it."
"oh, go on; do," says mr. darling, in a second aside, who is by this time a brilliant purple from fear and indignation.
"let's have it," says jack, waking up from his reverie, having found it impossible to compel violet's eyes to meet his.
"it is really nothing," says nolly, feverishly. "you have all heard it before."
"i said so," murmurs mona, meekly.
"it is quite an old story," goes on nolly.
"it is, in fact, the real and original 'old, old story," says geoffrey, innocently, smiling mildly at the leg of a distant table.
"if you are bent on telling 'em, do it all at once," whispers nolly, casting a withering glance at the smiling geoffrey. "it will save time and trouble."
"i never saw any one feel the heat so much as our oliver," says geoffrey, pleasantly. "his complexion waxeth warm."
"would you like a fan, nolly?" says mona, with a laugh, yet really with a kindly view to rescuing him from his present dilemma. "do you think you could find me mine? i fancy i left it in the morning-room."
"i am sure i could," says nolly, bestowing upon her a grateful glance, after which he starts upon his errand with suspicious alacrity.
"how odd nolly is at times!" says violet, yet without any very great show of surprise. she is still wrapped in her own dream of delight, and is rather indifferent to objects in which but yesterday she would have felt an immediate interest. "but, nicholas, what was his story about? he seems quite determined not to impart it to me."
"a mere nothing," says nicholas, airily; "we were merely chaffing him a little, because you know what a mess he makes of anything of that sort he takes in hand."
"but what was the subject of it?"
"oh—well—those thirty-five charming compatriots of mona's who are now in the house of commons, or, rather, out of it. it was a little tale that related to their expulsion the other night by the speaker—and—er—other things."
"if it was a political quip," says violet, "i shouldn't care about it."
this is fortunate. every one feels that nicholas is not only clever, but singularly lucky.
"it wasn't all politics, of course," he says carefully.
whereupon every one thinks he is a bold and daring man thus to risk fortune again.
it is at this particular moment that violet, inadvertently raising her head, lets her eyes meet jack rodney's. on which that young man—being prompt in action—goes quickly up to her, and in sight of the assembled multitude takes her hand in his.
"violet, you may as well tell them all now as at any other time," he says, persuasively.
"oh, no, not now," pleads violet, hastily. she rises hurriedly from her seat, and lays her disengaged hand on his lips. for once in her life she loses sight of her self-possession, and a blush, warm and rich as carmine, mantles on her cheek.
this fond coloring, suiting the exigencies of the moment suits her likewise. never before has she looked so entirely pretty. her lips tremble, her eyes grow pathetic. and captain rodney, already deeply in love, grows one degree more impressed with the fact of his own good fortune in having secured so enviable a bride.
passing his arm round her, he draws her closer to him.
"mother, violet has promised to marry me," he says abruptly. "haven't you, violet?"
and violet says, "yes," obediently, and then the tears come into her eyes, and a smile is born upon her lips, so sweet, so new, as compels doatie to whisper to mona, a little later on, that she "didn't think it was in violet to look like that."
here of course everybody says the most charming thing he or she can think of at a moment's notice; and then they all kiss violet, and nolly, coming back at this auspicious instant with the fan and recovered temper, joins in the general congratulations, and actually kisses her too, though geoffrey whispers "traitor" to him in an awful tone, as he goes forward to do it.
"it is the sweetest thing that could have happened," says dorothy, enthusiastically. "now mona and you and i will be real sisters."
"what a surprise it all is!" says geoffrey, hypocritically.
"yes, isn't it?" says dorothy, quite in good faith; "though i don't know after all why it should be; we could see for ourselves; we knew all about it long ago!"
"yes, long ago," says geoffrey, with animation. "quite an hour ago."
"oh! hardly!" says violet with a soft laugh and another blush. "how could you?"
"a little bird whispered it to us," explains geoffrey, lightly. then, taking pity on nolly's evident agony, he goes on "that is, you know, we guessed it; you were so long absent, and—and that."
there is something deplorably lame about this exposition, when you take into consideration the fact that the new lovers have been, during the past two months, always absent from the rest of the family, as a rule.
but violet is content.
"it is like a fairy-tale, and quite as pretty," says little dorothy, who is quite safe to turn out an inveterate matchmaker when a few more years have rolled over her sunny head.
"or like nolly's story that he declines telling me," says violet, with a laugh.
"well, really, now you say it," says geoffrey, as though suddenly struck with a satisfactory idea, "it is uncommonly like nolly's tale: when you come to compare one with the other they sound almost similar."
"what! how could jack or i resemble an irish member?" asks she, with a little grimace.
"everything has its romantic side," says geoffrey, "even an irish member, i dare say. and when you do induce nolly to favor you with his last joke, you will see that it is positively bristling with romance."
