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The Great Deadwood Mystery
by
“I am afraid, William,” interrupted Mrs. Rightbody, with feminine adroitness, adopting her husband’s topic with a view of thereby directing him from it,–“I’m afraid that people do not yet appreciate the substitution of bouillon for punch and ices. I observed that Mr. Spondee declined it, and, I fancied, looked disappointed. The fibrine and wheat in liqueur-glasses passed quite unnoticed too.”
“And yet each half-drachm contained the half-digested substance of a pound of beef. I’m surprised at Spondee!” continued Mr. Rightbody aggrievedly. “Exhausting his brain and nerve force by the highest creative efforts of the Muse, he prefers perfumed and diluted alcohol flavored with carbonic acid gas. Even Mrs. Faringway admitted to me that the sudden lowering of the temperature of the stomach by the introduction of ice–“
“Yes; but she took a lemon ice at the last Dorothea Reception, and asked me if I had observed that the lower animals refused their food at a temperature over 60 degrees.”
Mr. Rightbody again moved impatiently towards the door. Mrs. Rightbody eyed him curiously.
“You will not write, I hope? Dr. Keppler told me to-night that your cerebral symptoms interdicted any prolonged mental strain.”
“I must consult a few papers,” responded Mr. Rightbody curtly, as he entered his library.
It was a richly-furnished apartment, morbidly severe in its decorations, which were symptomatic of a gloomy dyspepsia of art, then quite prevalent. A few curios, very ugly, but providentially equally rare, were scattered about. There were various bronzes, marbles, and casts, all requiring explanation, and so fulfilling their purpose of promoting conversation, and exhibiting the erudition of their owner. There were souvenirs of travel with a history, old bric-a-brac with a pedigree, but little or nothing that challenged attention for itself alone. In all cases the superiority of the owner to his possessions was admitted. As a natural result, nobody ever lingered there, the servants avoided the room, and no child was ever known to play in it.
Mr. Rightbody turned up the gas, and from a cabinet of drawers, precisely labelled, drew a package of letters. These he carefully examined. All were discolored, and made dignified by age; but some, in their original freshness, must have appeared trifling, and inconsistent with any correspondent of Mr. Rightbody. Nevertheless, that gentleman spent some moments in carefully perusing them, occasionally referring to the telegram in his hand. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Mr. Rightbody started, made a half-unconscious movement to return the letters to the drawer, turned the telegram face downwards, and then, somewhat harshly, stammered,–
“Eh? Who’s there? Come in.”
“I beg your pardon, papa,” said a very pretty girl, entering, without, however, the slightest trace of apology or awe in her manner, and taking a chair with the self-possession and familiarity of an habitue of the room; “but I knew it was not your habit to write late, so I supposed you were not busy. I am on my way to bed.”
She was so very pretty, and withal so utterly unconscious of it, or perhaps so consciously superior to it, that one was provoked into a more critical examination of her face. But this only resulted in a reiteration of her beauty, and perhaps the added facts that her dark eyes were very womanly, her rich complexion eloquent, and her chiselled lips fell enough to be passionate or capricious, notwithstanding that their general effect suggested neither caprice, womanly weakness, nor passion.
With the instinct of an embarrassed man, Mr. Rightbody touched the topic he would have preferred to avoid.
“I suppose we must talk over to-morrow,” he hesitated, “this matter of yours and Mr. Marvin’s? Mrs. Marvin has formally spoken to your mother.”
Miss Alice lifted her bright eyes intelligently, but not joyfully; and the color of action, rather than embarrassment, rose to her round cheeks.
“Yes, HE said she would,” she answered simply.
“At present,” continued Mr. Rightbody still awkwardly, “I see no objection to the proposed arrangement.”
Miss Alice opened her round eyes at this.