Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Fiction
He glanced at the dim and worn painting of Penelope and the suitors
over the fireplace. Here, indeed, was a Penelope, and Lyddon considered
she had narrowly missed having an unconscious suitor in the person of
Philip Isabey. Luckily he had gone away before the impression made upon
him by Angela had deepened and changed the current of his being.
Lyddon looked critically at Angela. She was certainly growing very
pretty, with a kind of beauty captivating as it was irregular. She
would never be classed as a beauty, but was as charming as Adrienne Le
Noir was seductive.
While these thoughts flashed through Lyddon’s mind he glanced toward
the western window and saw in the gloom of the wintry evening the
Harrowby carriage coming down the cedar lane.
“There’s Colonel Tremaine,” he said.
Angela’s thoughts were suddenly diverted into practical channels. “I
must have Uncle Tremaine’s fire lighted at once!” she cried, and,
stepping out upon the back porch, she rang the bell five times, which
was supposed to summon Tasso, but, after ringing in turn for Mirandy
and Jim Henry, finally succeeded in getting both of them, who proceeded
to hunt the place for Tasso instead of lighting the fire themselves.
Meanwhile the carriage was at the door, and Angela, snatching up her
crimson mantle and throwing it over her fair head, ran down the steps
and herself opened the carriage door.
Out stepped Colonel Tremaine and kissed her affectionately. But there
was another person within the carriage--a man, pale and worn and
haggard, with a leg and an arm bound up. It was Philip Isabey.
The shock of seeing him was shown in Angela’s expressive face. Instead
of the warm and ready greeting which a guest usually receives, she
stood at the carriage door, her mantle dropping off her shoulders,
looking at Isabey with eyes which had in them something both of fear
and of delight. She felt more emotion at this sudden apparition of him
than she had ever felt at seeing anyone in her life before. And with it
an instinctive dread of being thrown with him again instantly sprang
into life.
Isabey, himself, had the disadvantage of being a close observer. He had
looked forward to this meeting not with fear but with pure delight, and
was prepared to watch how Angela greeted him; she was so guileless that
she was easily read by an experienced eye.
He held out his hand feebly and said in his old, pleasant, musical
voice: “How glad I am to see you again!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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