FullReads

He made the above mental notes during the course of the dinner, while Catterson’s nervousness gradually wore off, and his gaiety returned. His infatuation for Nettie, led him, when in her presence, to the conviction that every one else must be equally infatuated too.

The dining-room was small like the parlour, and looked out through a French window, over a tangled slip of garden. The furniture consisted chiefly of Japanese fans, but there was also a round table, and at least three chairs. The arrangements, generally, were of a picnic character, and when Mrs. Baker, a stout and loquacious old body, brought in the dishes, she stayed awhile to join in the conversation, addressing them all impartially as “My dear,” and Nettie in particular as “My dear Life.”

But the meal if simple, was satisfying, and Nettie herself left the table to make the coffee, as Catterson had taught her to do, in French fashion. He brought out from the chiffonier a bottle of green Chartreuse, and Nettie handed cigarettes and found an ash-tray. She was full of ministering attentions.

While they smoked and talked, and she sat silent, her limpid eyes fixed usually on Catterson, although every now and then, West knew they were turned upon him, wails were heard from upstairs.

“It’s baby, poor little soul,” said Nettie, rising.”Please, Jack, may I go and bring her down?”

She presently returned with a flannel-gowned infant in her arms. The child had just the same large, limpid, blue-grey eyes as the mother, with just the same look in them. She fixed West with the relentless, unswerving stare of infancy, and not all her father’s blandishments could extract a smile.

Nettie, kissing the square-toed, pink feet, addressed her as “Blossom,” and “Dear little soul;” then sat tranquilly nursing her, as a child might nurse a doll.

She had really many of a child’s ways, and when Catterson, at the end of the evening, put on his hat to accompany West to the station, she asked in her long, plaintive drawl, “May I come, too, Jack?” exactly as a child asks permission of parent or master. She put her head back again into the dining-room a moment after leaving it.”What shall I put on, my cloak or my cape?” she said; “and must I change my shoes?”

Catterson turned to West with a smile, which asked for congratulations.”You see how docile she is, how gentle? And it’s always the same. It’s always my wishes that guide her. She never does anything without asking my opinion and advice. I don’t know how a man could have a better wife. I know I should never find one to suit me better. But now you’ve seen her for yourself, you’ve come over to my opinion, I feel sure? You’ve got nothing further to urge against my marrying her, have you?”

West was saved the embarrassment of a reply by the reappearance of Nettie in outdoor things, and Catterson was too satisfied in his own mind with the effect she must have produced, to notice the omission.

He talked blithely on indifferent matters until the train moved out of the station, and West carried away with him a final vignette of the two young people standing close together beneath the glare of a gas-lamp, Catterson with an arm affectionately slipped through the girl’s. . His thin, handsome face was flushed with excitement and self-content. The demure little figure beside him, that did not reach up to his shoulder, in neat black coat and toque, stared at West across the platform, from limpid, most curious eyes.

What the devil was the peculiarity of those eyes, he asked himself impatiently? and hammered out the answer to the oscillations of the carriage, the vibration of the woodwork, the flicker of the lamp, as the train rumbled through the night and jerked up at flaring stations.