Gordon Keith Part 73

"Well, it is one of the things which you must always hold merely as a conjecture, for you can never know by experience."

She glanced up at him with a smile, half pleased, half reproving.

"Do you think I am the sort that likes flattery? I believe you think we are all silly. I thought you were too good a friend of mine to attempt that line with me."

Keith declared that all women loved flattery, but protested, of course, that he was not flattering her.

"Why should I?" he laughed.

"Oh, just because you think it will please me, and because it is so easy. It is so much less trouble. It takes less intellect, and you don't think I am worth spending intellect on."

This Keith stoutly denied.

She gave him a fleeting glance out of her brown eyes. "She, however, is as good as she is handsome," she said, returning to Mrs. Lancaster.

"Yes; she is one of those who 'do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.'"

"There are not a great many like that around here," Lois smiled. "Here comes one now?" she added, as Mrs. Nailor moved up to them. She was "so glad" to see Miss Huntington out. "You must like your Winter in New York?" she said, smiling softly. "You have such opportunities for seeing interesting people-like Mr. Keith, here?" She turned her eyes on Keith.

"Oh, yes. I do. I see so many entertaining people," said Lois, innocently.

"They are very kind to you?" purred the elder lady.

"Most condescending." Lois turned her eyes toward Keith with a little sparkle in them; but as she read his appreciation a smile stole into them.

Dinner was solemnly announced, and the couples swept out in that stately manner appropriate to solemn occasions, such as marriages, funerals, and fas.h.i.+onable dinners.

"Do you know your place?" asked Keith of Lois, to whom he had been a.s.signed.

"Don't I? A governess and not know her place! You must help me through."

"Through what?"

"The dinner. You do not understand what a tremendous responsibility you have. This is my first dinner."

"I always said dinners were a part of the curse," said Keith, lightly, smiling down at her fresh face with sheer content. "I shall confine myself hereafter to breakfast and lunch-except when I receive invitations to Mrs. Wickersham's." he added.

Mrs. Lancaster was on the other side of Keith; so he found the dinner much pleasanter than he had expected. She soon fell to talking of Lois, a subject which Keith found very agreeable.

"You know, she is staying with Louise Wentworth? Louise had to have some one to stay with her, so she got her to come and teach the children this Winter. Louise says she is trying to make something of her."

"From my slight observation, it seems to me as if the Creator has been rather successful in that direction already. How does she propose to help Him out?"

Mrs. Lancaster bent forward and took a good look at the girl, who at the moment was carrying on an animated conversation with Stirling. Her color was coming and going, her eyes were sparkling, and her cheek was dimpling with fun.

"She looks as if she came out of a country garden, doesn't she?" she said.

"Yes, because she has, and has not yet been wired to a stick."

Mrs. Lancaster's eyes grew graver at Keith's speech. Just then the conversation became more general. Some one told a story of a man travelling with his wife and meeting a former wife, and forgetting which one he then had.

"Oh, that reminds me of a story I heard the other day. It was awfully good-but just a little wicked," exclaimed Mrs. Nailor.

Keith's smile died out, and there was something very like a cloud lowering on his brow. Several others appeared surprised, and Mr. Nailor, a small bald-headed man, said across the table: "Hally, don't you tell that story." But Mrs. Nailor was not to be controlled.

"Oh, I must tell it! It is not going to hurt any of you. Let me see if there is any one here very young and innocent?" She glanced about the table. "Oh, yes; there is little Miss Huntington. Miss Huntington, you can stop your ears while I tell it."

"Thank you," said Lois, placidly. She leaned a little forward and put her fingers in her ears.

A sort of gasp went around the table, and then a shout of laughter, led by Stirling. Mrs. Nailor joined in it, but her face was red and her eyes were angry. Mrs. Wentworth looked annoyed.

"Good," said Mrs. Lancaster, in an undertone.

"Divine," said Keith, his eyes snapping with satisfaction.

"It was not so bad as that," said Mrs. Nailor, her face very red. "Miss Huntington, you can take your hands down now; I sha'n't tell it."

"Thank you," said Lois, and sat quietly back in her chair, with her face as placid as a child's.

Mrs. Nailor suddenly changed the conversation to Art. She was looking at a painting on the wall behind Keith, and after inspecting it a moment through her lorgnon, turned toward the head of the table.

"Where did you get that picture, Mrs. Wickersham? Have I ever seen it before?"

The hostess's gaze followed hers.

"That? Oh, we have had it ever so long. It is a portrait of an ancestor of mine. It belonged to a relative, a distant relative--another branch, you know, in whose family it came down, though we had even more right to it, as we were an older branch," she said, gaining courage as she went on.

Mrs. Lancaster turned and inspected the picture.

"I, too, almost seem to have seen it before," she said presently, in a reflective way.

"My dear, you have not seen it before," declared the hostess, positively. "Although we have had it for a good while, it was at our place in the country. Brush, the picture-dealer, says it is one of the finest 'old masters' in New York, quite in the best style of Sir Peter--What's his name?"

"Then I have seen some one so like it--? Who can it be?" said Mrs.

Lancaster, her mind still working along the lines of reminiscence.

Nearly every one was looking now.

"Why, I know who it is!" said Lois Huntington, who had turned to look at it, to Mrs. Lancaster. "It is Mr. Keith." Her clear voice was heard distinctly.

"Of course, it is," said Mrs. Lancaster. Others agreed with her.

Keith, too, had turned and looked over his shoulder at the picture behind him, and for a moment he seemed in a dream. His father was gazing down at him out of the frame. The next moment he came to himself.

It was the man-in-armor that used to hang in the library at Elphinstone.

As he turned back, he glanced at Mrs. Lancaster, and her eyes gazed into his. The next moment he addressed Mrs. Wickersham and started a new subject of conversation.

"That is it," said Mrs. Lancaster to herself. Then turning to her hostess, she said: "No, I never saw it before; I was mistaken."

But Lois knew that she herself had seen it before, and remembered where it was.