“If Miss Dandridge would accept another fashion of ring!” cried Fairfax Cary, and all at table laughed.  Scipio took away the rosebud china, and laid the purple dessert service for the strawberries and floating island and Betty Custis cake.  Caleb placed the decanters of claret and Madeira, and the Fontenoy men began to talk of horse-racing, of Mustapha, Nonpareil, York, and Victor.

Jacqueline and Unity, leaving the gentlemen at their wine, came out into the broad hall and stood at the front door looking out at the coloured clouds above the hills.  They supped early at Fontenoy, and the evening was yet rosy.

“He is going to speak to-night,” said Unity, with conviction.  “It is written in his eye.”

“If you mean Mr. Cary—­”

“Whom else should I mean?  What are you going to say to him, Jacqueline?  I want you to say Yes, and I want you to say No.”

“Don’t, Unity—­”

“If you say Yes, you will have Greenwood and the most charming husband in the world, and be envied of every girl in the county; and if you say No, I’ll have you still—­”

“I shall say No.”

“What ails you, Jacqueline?  I could swear that you’re in love, and yet I don’t believe you are in love with Ludwell Cary!—­though I am sure you ought to be.  It’s not Mr. Lee, nor Mr. Page, nor Jack Martin, nor—­you’re never in love with Fairfax Cary?”

Jacqueline laughed, “How absurd, Unity!—­though may be some day I shall love him as a cousin!”

Unity regarded her with a puzzled gathering of black brows.  “There’s no one else that by any stretch of imagination I can believe you in love with—­unless it’s Mr. Pincornet!”

“Oh, now you certainly have it!” cried Jacqueline, with another tremulous laugh.  She released herself from her cousin’s arm.  “I am going to tell Deb good-night.  And Unity—­I don’t want Mr. Cary to speak to-night, nor to-morrow night, nor any other night!  I’ll stay at Fontenoy—­I’ll stay at Fontenoy and care for Aunt Nancy and Deb and Uncle Dick and Uncle Edward.  I’ll dance at your wedding, Unity, but you’ll not dance at mine!”

She was gone.  Unity sat down upon the porch steps and began to name upon her fingers the eligible young men of three counties.  In her anxiety to account for Jacqueline’s pallor and the dark beneath her eyes, she went far afield, but she met with no success.  “It’s not one of them!” she sighed at last.  “And yet, she’s changed—­”

Jacqueline went slowly upstairs, a slender figure in white, touching with her hand the polished balustrade.  When she reached the long and wide upper hall, she passed steadily along it, but she turned her eyes upon a door at the far end, the door of the blue room.  Arrived in her own cool and fragrant chamber, she found Deb already asleep in the small bed, her yellow hair spread upon the pillow, her gown open at the throat, a rag doll in the hollow of her arm.  Upon the floor, with her head against the bed, sat Miranda, as fast asleep as her mistress.  At Jacqueline’s touch she awoke, smiled widely, and was on her feet with a spring.  “Yaas, Miss Jacqueline, I done put Miss Deb to bed.  Mammy Chloe say dat niggah Joab don’ know nothin’ ‘bout er broken ahm, an’ she too busy in de blue room.  Yaas’m, I done mek Miss Deb wash her face an’ say her prayers.  Kin I go now?”