"Well, we were," said Kilian, with a laugh, and then we drove on rapidly.
At the tea-table Mr. Langenau said to Sophie as he rose to go away: "Mrs. Hollenbeck, if there is any service I can render you this evening at the piano, I shall be very glad if you will let me know."
Mrs. Hollenbeck thanked him with cordiality, but told him of the provision that had been made.
"But you will dance, Mr. Langenau," cried Mary Leighton, "we need dancing-men terribly, you know. Promise me you'll dance."
"Oh," said Charlotte Benson, "he has promised me." Mr. Langenau bowed low; he got wonderfully through these awkward situations. As he left the room Kilian said in a tone loud enough for us, but not for him, to hear, "The Lowders have a nice young gardener; hadn't we better send to see if he can't come this evening?"
"Kilian, that's going a little too far," said Richard in a displeased manner; "as long as the boys' tutor conducts himself like a gentleman, he deserves to be treated like a gentleman."
"Ah, Paterfamilias, thank you. Yes, I'll think of it," and Kilian proposed that we should leave the table, as we all seemed to have appeased our appetites and nothing but civil war could come of staying any longer.
It was understood we had not much time to dress: but when I came down-stairs, none of the others had appeared. Richard met me in the hall: he had been rather stern to me all day, but his manner quite softened as he stood beside me under the hall-lamp. That was the result of my lovely white mull, with its mint of Valenciennes.
"You haven't any flowers," he said. Heavens! who'd have thought he'd ever have spoken in such a tone again, after the cup of tea I poured out for the tutor. "Let's go and see if we can't find some in these vases that are fit, for I suppose the garden's robbed."
"Yes," I said, following him, quite pleased. For I could not bear to have him angry with me. I was really fond of him, dear, old Richard; and I looked so happy that I have no doubt he thought more of it than he ought. He pulled all the pretty vases in the parlor to pieces: (Charlotte and Henrietta and his sister had arranged them with such care!) and made me a bouquet of ferns, and tea-roses, and lovely, lovely heliotrope. I begged him to stop, but he went on till the flowers were all arranged and tied together, and no one came down-stairs till the spoilage was complete.