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Page 27
"A laugh!" he repeated. "Who could have laughed like that? We are
not a very jolly crowd here."
"I don't know, sir. I thought it must have been either Mr. Steele
or Nixon, the butler, but each denied it. There was no one else in
this part of the house."
"Mrs. Packard is very sensitive just now," he remarked. Then as he
turned away toward the library door: "I will throw myself on a
lounge. I have but an hour or two before me, as I have my
preparations to make for leaving town on the early morning train.
I shall have some final instructions to give you."
CHAPTER VIII
THE PARAGRAPH
I was up betimes. Would Mrs. Packard appear at breakfast? I
hardly thought so. Yet who knows? Such women have great
recuperative powers, and from one so mysteriously affected anything
might be expected. Ready at eight, I hastened down to the second
floor to find the lady, concerning whom I had had these doubts,
awaiting me on the threshold of her room. She was carefully
dressed and looked pale enough to have been up for hours. An
envelope was in her hand, and the smile which hailed my approach
was cold and constrained.
"Good morning," said she. "Let us go down. Let us go down
together. I slept wretchedly and do not feel very strong. When
did Mr. Packard come in?"
"Late. He went directly to the library. He said that he had
but a short time in which to rest, and would take what sleep he
could get on the lounge, when I told him of your very natural
nervous attack."
She sighed--a sigh which came from no inconsiderable depths--then
with a proud and resolute gesture preceded me down-stairs.
Her husband was already in the breakfast-room. I could hear his
voice as we turned at the foot of the stairs. Mrs. Packard,
hearing it, too, drew herself up still more firmly and was passing
bravely forward, when Nixon's gray head protruded from the doorway
and I heard him say:
"There's company for breakfast, ma'am. His Honor could not spare
Mr. Steele and asked me to set a place for him."
I noted a momentary hesitation on Mrs. Packard's part, then she
silently acquiesced and we both passed on. In another instant we
were receiving the greetings and apologies of the gentlemen. If
Mr. Steele had expected that his employer's wife would offer him
her hand, he was disappointed.
"I am happy to welcome one who has proved so useful to my husband,"
she remarked with cool though careful courtesy as we all sat down
at the table; and, without waiting for an answer, she proceeded to
pour the coffee with a proud grace which gave no hint of the
extreme feeling by which I had seen her moved the night before.
Had I known her better I might have found something extremely
unnatural in her manner and the very evident restraint she put upon
herself through the whole meal; but not having any acquaintance
with her ordinary bearing under conditions purely social, I was
thrown out of my calculations by the cold ease with which she
presided at her end of the table, and the set smile with which she
greeted all remarks, whether volunteered by her husband or by his
respectful but affable secretary. I noticed, however, that she ate
little.
Nixon, whom I dared not watch, did not serve with his usual
precision,--this I perceived from the surprised look cast at him by
Mayor Packard on at least two occasions. Though to the ordinary
eye a commonplace meal, it had elements of tragedy in it which made
the least movement on the part of those engaged in it of real
moment to me. I was about to leave the table unenlightened,
however, when Mrs. Packard rose and, drawing a letter from under
the tray before which she sat, let her glances pass from one
gentleman to the other with a look of decided inquiry. I drew in
my breath and by dropping my handkerchief sought an excuse for
lingering in the room an instant longer.
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