Americans -- England -- Fiction; England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
I begin to think I am what is called a psychical person, for I woke
this morning with a strong presentiment of things happening or about
to happen. The day did not seem to lend itself to events; it had
broken with rain lashing the window panes and a gale of wind blowing
through every crevice of the hotel. Mrs. MacGill did not feel able to
rise for breakfast. As a matter of fact she was more able to do so
than I was, but she didn't think so, which settled the matter.
Therefore I went down to the breakfast-room alone.
If the outer air was dreary, the scene indoors was very cheerful. A
large fire blazed in the grate, and in front of the rain-lashed
windows a table was laid for three. Virginia and Sir Archibald were
already seated at it, and he rose, as I came in, and showed me that my
place was with them.
'We felt sure that Mrs. MacGill would not appear this morning,' he
said, 'so we thought we might all breakfast together.'
What a gay little meal that was! Virginia was at her brightest; she
would have made an owl laugh. I found myself forgetting headache and
unhappiness, as I listened to her; and as for Sir Archibald, he seemed
another man altogether from the rigid young Scotchman of our first
acquaintance.
'Well, now, Sir Archibald,' said Virginia, as she rose from the table,
'the question is what a well-brought-up young man like you is going to
do with himself all this wet day. I know what we are to be about, Miss
Evesham and I,--we are going to look at all my new Paris gowns, and
try on all my best hats.'
'There's always the motor,' he said.
Virginia had none of that way of hanging about with young men that
English girls have. There could be no doubt that she was interested in
Sir Archibald, and wished him to be interested in her, but apparently
for that very reason she would not let him see too much of her that
morning. She carried me off to her room, and kept me there so long,
looking at her clothes, that Mrs. MacGill found sharp fault with me
when at last I returned to her. What had I been doing? I might have
known that she would want me, etc.; she had decided not to get up
until tea-time. 'It is impossible to go to church, and it is much
easier to employ one's time well in bed,' she said. So in bed she
remained, and I in attendance upon her until it was time for luncheon.
When I went downstairs, Virginia had also appeared again, and I saw
the wisdom and skill of her tactics; she was far more pleasing to the
young man now, because he had seen nothing of her all morning, and she
knew it. Sir Archibald, it appeared, had passed his time in the
motor-shed, presumably either examining the machinery of the motor or
polishing it up. Virginia seemed to have been writing letters; she
brought a bundle of them down with her, and laid one, address
uppermost, on the table beside her. It was addressed to 'Breckenridge
Calhoun, Esq., Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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