Christie’s only reply to this levity was a look of superior resignation as she crossed the hall and entered the parlor.

Then ensued one of those surprising, mystifying, and utterly inexplicable changes that leave the masculine being so helpless in the hands of his feminine master.  Before Christie opened the door her face underwent a rapid transformation:  the gentle glow of a refined woman’s welcome suddenly beamed in her interested eyes; the impulsive courtesy of an expectant hostess eagerly seizing a long-looked-for opportunity broke in a smile upon her lips as she swept across the room, and stopped with her two white outstretched hands before Whiskey Dick.

It needed only the extravagant contrast presented by that gentleman to complete the tableau.  Attired in a suit of shining black alpaca, the visitor had evidently prepared himself with some care for a possible interview.  He was seated by the French window opening upon the veranda, as if to secure a retreat in case of an emergency.  Scrupulously washed and shaven, some of the soap appeared to have lingered in his eyes and inflamed the lids, even while it lent a sleek and shining lustre, not unlike his coat, to his smooth black hair.  Nevertheless, leaning back in his chair, he had allowed a large white handkerchief to depend gracefully from his fingers—­a pose at once suggesting easy and elegant langour.

“How kind of you to give me an opportunity to make up for my misfortune when you last called!  I was so sorry to have missed you.  But it was entirely my fault!  You were hurried, I think—­you conversed with others in the hall—­you—­”

She stopped to assist him to pick up the handkerchief that had fallen, and the Panama hat that had rolled from his lap towards the window when he had started suddenly to his feet at the apparition of grace and beauty.  As he still nervously retained the two hands he had grasped, this would have been a difficult feat, even had he not endeavored at the same moment, by a backward furtive kick, to propel the hat out of the window, at which she laughingly broke from his grasp and flew to the rescue.

“Don’t mind it, miss,” he said hurriedly.  “It is not worth your demeaning yourself to touch it.  Leave it outside thar, miss.  I wouldn’t have toted it in, anyhow, if some of those high-falutin’ fellows hadn’t allowed, the other night, ez it were the reg’lar thing to do; as if, miss, any gentleman kalkilated to ever put on his hat in the house afore a lady!”

But Christie had already possessed herself of the unlucky object, and had placed it upon the table.  This compelled Whiskey Dick to rise again, and as an act of careless good breeding to drop his handkerchief in it.  He then leaned one elbow upon the piano, and, crossing one foot over the other, remained standing in an attitude he remembered to have seen in the pages of an illustrated paper as portraying the hero in some drawing-room scene.  It was easy and effective, but seemed to be more favorable to revery than conversation.  Indeed, he remembered that he had forgotten to consult the letterpress as to which it represented.