“Oh, old Harry’s all right,” he said.  “He’s my pal, and he never means anything, anyway.”  But I noticed that he said it as if he were trying to convince himself of the truth of his assertion.

When I told Harry Underwood that he was to take me in to dinner, and we were leading the way into the dining room, his brilliant black eyes looked down into mine mockingly, and he said: 

“You see it is Fate.  No matter how you struggle against it you cannot escape me.”

“Do I look as if I were struggling?” I laughed back, and saw a sudden expression of bewilderment in his eyes, followed instantly by a flash of triumph.

Everything that was cattishly feminine in me leaped to life at that look in the eyes of the man whom I detested, whom I had even feared.  I could read plainly enough in his eyes that he thought the assiduous flatteries he had always paid me were commencing to have their result, that I was beginning to recognize the dangerous fascination he was reputed to have for women of every station.  I had a swift, savage desire to avenge the women he must have made suffer, to hurt him as before dinner he had wounded Lillian.

So instead of turning an impassive face to Mr. Underwood’s remark, I listened with just the hint of an elusive mischievous smile twisting my lips.

“No, you don’t look very uncomfortable.  You look”—­he caught his breath as if with some emotion too strong for utterance, and then said a trifle huskily: 

“Will you let me tell you how you look to me?”

I had to exercise all my self-control to keep from laughing in his face.  He was such a poseur, his simulation of emotion was so melodramatic that I wondered if he really imagined I would be impressed by it.

A spirit of mischievous daring stirred in me.

“Don’t tell me just now,” I said softly.  “Wait till after dinner.”

“Afraid?” he challenged.

“Perhaps,” I countered.

He gave my hand lying upon his arm a swift, furtive pressure and released it so quickly that there was no possibility of his being observed.  I had no time to rebuke him, had I been so disposed, for we had almost reached our places at the table.

I do not remember much of the dinner over which Mother Graham, Katie and I had worked so assiduously.  That everything went off smoothly, as we had planned, that from the Casaba melons which were served first to the walnuts of the last course, everything was delicious in flavor and perfect in service I was gratefully but dimly aware.

For I felt as if I were on the brink of a volcano.  Not because of Harry Underwood’s elaborate show of attention to me to which I was pretending to respond, much to the disgust of my mother-in-law, but on account of the queer behavior of Robert Gordon.

Lillian, who was making a pitifully brave attempt to bring to the occasion all the airy brightness with which she was wont to make any gathering favored by her presence a success, secured only the briefest responses from him, although he had taken her out to dinner.  Sometimes he made no answer at all to her remarks, evidently not hearing them.