"
"Then _I_ shall."
"On your peril!" he cried, with hasty rigor.
But Eloise escaped, trailing one end of her scarf behind, looking back
at him, laughing, and shaking her threatening fan as he stepped after
her. And then Mr. St. George resumed his haughty silence.
Eloise went down the hall after Hazel. She found her in the empty
dining-room, having just set down the salver; the last light, that,
stealing in, illumined all the paintings of clusters of fruit and
bunches of flowers upon the white panelling, had yet a little ray to
spare for the girl where she crouched with her sobs, her apron flung
above her head; and when Eloise laid her hand gently on her shoulder,
she sprang as if one had struck her.
"Oh, Miss 'Loise! Miss 'Loise! I'm in such trouble!" she gasped.
It did not take long for the little story to find the air. Vane and
Hazel, secure of Eloise's efforts, had married. It was one of the
immutable Blue Bluffs laws that they had broken: there were no marriages
allowed off the place there. Vane was expiating his offence no one knew
where, and there were even rumors that he had already been sent away to
the Cuban plantation of the Marlboro's, whither all refractory slaves
were wont to journey.
Eloise went slowly back to the drawing-room, then out upon the piazza,
and with her went that bending grace that accompanied her least motion,
and always reminded you of a flower swaying on its stem.
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