I positively couldn't look away from him. My features seemed frozen, and
my eyes were glued to his. As for telling him the truth--well, my
tongue refused to move. I intended to tell him during dinner if I had
an opportunity; I honestly did. But the more I looked at him and saw
how candid his eyes were, and how stern his mouth might be, the more I
shivered at the plunge. And, of course, as everybody knows now, I didn't
tell him at all. And every moment I expected that awful old woman to
ask me what I paid my cook, and when I had changed the color of my
hair--Bella's being black.
Dinner was a half hour late when we finally went out, Jimmy leading off
with Aunt Selina, and I, as hostess, trailing behind the procession with
Mr. Harbison. Dallas took in the two Mercer girls, for we were one man
short, and Max took Anne. Leila Mercer was so excited that she wriggled,
and as for me, the candles and the orchids--everything--danced around
in a circle, and I just seemed to catch the back of my chair as it flew
past. Jim had ordered away the wines and brought out some weak and cheap
Chianti. Dallas looked gloomy at the change, but Jim explained in
an undertone that Aunt Selina didn't approve of expensive vintages.
Naturally, the meal was glum enough.
Aunt Selina had had her dinner on the train, so she spent her time in
asking me questions the length of the table, and in getting acquainted
with me. She had brought a bottle of some sort of medicine downstairs
with her, and she took a claret-glassful, while she talked. The stuff
was called Pomona; shall I ever forget it?
It was Mr. Harbison who first noticed Takahiro. Jimmy's Jap had been the
only thing in the menage that Bella declared she had hated to leave.
But he was doing the strangest things: his little black eyes shifted
nervously, and he looked queer.
"What's wrong with him?" Mr. Harbison asked me finally, when he saw that
I noticed. "Is he ill?"
Then Aunt Selina's voice from the other end of the table: "Bella," she called, in a high shrill tone, "do you let James eat
cucumbers?"
"I think he must be," I said hurriedly aside to Mr. Harbison. "See how
his hands shake!" But Selina would not be ignored.
"Cucumbers and strawberries," she repeated impressively. "I was
saying, Bella, that cucumbers have always given James the most fearful
indigestion. And yet I see you serve them at your table. Do you remember
what I wrote you to give him when he has his dreadful spells?"
I was quite speechless; every one was looking, and no one could help. It
was clear Jim was racking his brain, and we sat staring desperately at
each other across the candles. Everything I had ever known faded from
me, eight pairs of eyes bored into me, Mr. Harbison's politely amused.