“I don’t believe it.  Where have you seen him that you have so much more confidence than I have?”

“I’ve had one or two little talks with him that have told me a good deal.  And this afternoon he met me as I was coming downstairs with Gordon.  Rob, what do you think?  Gordon went to him exactly as he goes to Stephen; they had the greatest time.  Gordon knows better than you do whom to trust.”

“You and Gordon are very discerning.  A handsome face and a wheedling manner—­and you think you have a fine, strong character.  Handsome is as handsome does, Rosy Gray of the soft heart, and a wheedling manner is dust and ashes compared with the ability to accomplish something worth effort.  But—­bring your nice young man to the party if you like; only take care of him.  I shall be busy with the real men!”

CHAPTER VIII

ROSES RED

It was certainly rather a curious coincidence that when Mr. Matthew Kendrick and his grandson Richard entered upon the scene of the Grays’ Christmas Eve party it should be at the moment when Mr. Rufus Gray and his niece Roberta were dancing a quadrille together.  Richard had just been received by his hosts and had turned from them to look about him, when his searching eye caught sight of the pair.  This was the precise moment—­he always afterward recalled it—­when his heart gave its first great, disconcerting leap at sight of her, such a leap as he had never known could shake a man to the foundations.

He had never seen precisely this Roberta before; he explained it to himself in that way.  It was a good explanation.  Any sane man who saw her for the first time that night must instantly have fallen under her spell.

The Christmas party was the event of the year dearest to Roberta’s heart.  The planning for it, since she had been old enough to take her part, had been in her hands; it was she who was responsible for every detail of decoration.  The great attic room, which was a glorious playroom the rest of the year, was transformed on Christmas into a fairyland.  The results were brought about in much the same way as in other places of revelry, with lighting and draping and the use of evergreens and flowers; but somehow one felt that no drawing-room similarly treated could have been half so charming as the big attic spaces with their gables.

And the company!  At first Richard saw only the pair who danced together in the quadrille.  If he had glanced about him he might have observed that the gaze of nearly all who were not dancing was centred upon those two.

Uncle Rufus was the plumpest, jolliest, most altogether delightful specimen of the country gentleman that Richard had ever seen.  His ruddy face was clean-shaven, his heavy gray hair waved a little with a boyish effect about his ears.  He was carefully dressed in a frock coat of a cut not so ancient as to be at all odd, and it fitted his broad shoulders with precision.  He wore a white waistcoat and a flowing black tie, which helped to carry out the impression of his being a boy whose hair had accidentally turned gray.  As he danced he put every possible embellishment of posture and step into his task, and when he bowed to Roberta his attitude expressed the deepest reverence, offset only by his laughing face as he advanced to take her hand.