"Are you not delighted to see him?" she asked.
"I am very glad to see Armari," he replied, in a tone of ice. "I have asked him to dine with us next Thursday. He has promised to bring Schwab."
"Schwab, too!--was he there?"
"No; he was kept at home by a cold."
"They shall have a good dinner," warmly said Kate. "Midge, is Armari as handsome as Cornelius described him in his letters?"
"He is good-looking," I replied, awkwardly.
"Pleasant?"
"Yes--I don't know--I think so."
"Armari," gravely said Cornelius, "resembles the celebrated portraits of Raffaelle. He is something more than good-looking--he is a delightful companion, and something more than pleasant."
"I am sure he is not the common-place fellow you made him out, Daisy,"
observed Kate.
"I did not make him out anything; I don't think about him at all," I replied, half vexed.
"Well, you need not colour up so," she said, looking surprised; "and you need not look so glum about it, Cornelius. Tastes differ."
Neither replied. Miss O'Reilly, whose whole thoughts were absorbed in hospitality, did not notice this, but added, with a start:
"How long are they to stay?"
"Two or three weeks."
"Then ask them to spend those two or three weeks here," she rejoined, triumphantly. "I have bed-rooms to spare, you know."
"Here--in the house?" exclaimed Cornelius.
"Where else should I have bed-rooms?"
"Thank you," was his short reply.
"Does thank you, mean yes?"
"No, indeed. What should they do here?"
He seemed impatient and provoked. His sister asked if he would not feel glad to have his friends near him? He replied "Certainly," but that they came to see London, and not to coop themselves up in a suburb. Miss O'Reilly said she would at least make the offer. Her brother looked quite irritated.
"Schwab will smoke you to death," he said.
"As if I were not used to smoking."
"My cigars are nothing to his Turkish pipe. Besides, he swears awfully."
"In German," philosophically replied Kate. "Let him, Cornelius: I shall not understand him; and it will only be the worse for his own soul, poor heathenish fellow."
"He is a confirmed woman-hater."
"Unhappy man, not to know better!--but there is a comfort in it, too. I shall not be afraid of his making love to Daisy."
"He will eat you out of house and home."
"I am astonished at such a mean, paltry objection," replied Miss O'Reilly, waxing indignant.
"Well, then," he said, impatiently, "take it for granted that I do not want Schwab."
"I suppose you could not ask Armari alone?"
"No," was the prompt reply. "To tell you the truth, Kate, I want to work hard, and their presence in the house would interfere with it."
"Could you not say so at once, instead of abusing that unfortunate Schwab? Well, your friends shall at least have a good dinner."
Miss O'Reilly was learned in many a dainty dish, and had imparted to me some of her art. Our united skill and efforts produced as luxurious a little dinner for five as one need wish to see. The guests were punctual to the very minute; there was no delay, no spoiling of dishes and chafing of tempers, and all would have gone on admirably, but for an unlucky circumstance. Kate and I did not speak Italian, and the friends of Cornelius did not speak English; bad French was therefore the medium of our conversation. Kate liked talking, and she sat with a provoked air between her two guests whom I watched with silent amusement. With his dark hair, his classical features, ivory throat, and collar turned down ?
la Byron, Signor Armari looked very interesting; but all his vivacity seemed gone. He hung his handsome head with dismal grace, like a wounded bird, smiled at the untouched food on his plate, and gave us looks that seemed to say: "Eat away--eat away."
The injunction was religiously obeyed by his friend Schwab. He belonged to the handsome Germanic type, and was very like an illustrious personage. He had an honest, hearty northern appetite, and marched into the dishes, and tossed off the claret with a careless vigour that edified Kate. It was pleasant to see him dispatch the choicest dainties of the dessert without even a smile. When he came indeed to some tarts, in which I think I may say I had distinguished myself, his countenance relaxed a little; and when Cornelius informed him that they owed their existence to me, Mr. Schwab looked at me with an uplifting of the eye-brow expressive of wonder and admiration.
I had expected a dull evening, and I spent a very pleasant one. The two friends of Cornelius sang and played admirably, and treated us to the most exquisite music I had ever heard. Both Kate and I were delighted, and when they were gone, said how much we had been pleased.
"I like that Schwab," observed Kate, "he is very good-looking, and not the bear you made him out, Cornelius. He has a good appetite, but your great eaters are the men after all. The little eaters are only half-and- half sort of people; and then he sings so well, and so does Armari. How handsome he is; but how melancholy he looks! Is he in love?"
Cornelius looked on thorns, and replied: "he did not know."
To our surprise and vexation, his friends came no more near us. He said they found the distance too great, and spent his evenings with them. I did not like that at all, and one evening spared no coaxing to keep him at home. I passed my arms around his neck, and caressed him, and entreated him to stay with me and Kate. He returned the caresses, called me by every dear name he could think of, protested that he would much rather stay than go, but left me all the same. I had taken the habit--it is one easily taken--of being humoured. I now cried with vexation and grief. Kate said nothing, but privately invited her brother's friends to come and stay with us. They accepted. I shall never forget the face of Cornelius, when she quietly informed him they were coming the next day.
"Coming to stay?" he said looking at her incredulously.
"Yes, coming to stay," she composedly replied, "you did not think I was going to stand that much longer--such a mean way of receiving one's friends. Why, what would be thought of us in Ireland, if it were known!
For shame, Cornelius, you look quite dismayed."
So he did, and repeated the word "coming!" with ill-repressed irritation.
"Yes, coming!" persisted Kate, "don't trouble yourself about them. I shall so stuff Mr. Schwab's mouth, as to leave no room even for German swearing, and I shall turn up Signor Armari into the drawing room where he may sing Italian to Daisy. So there's a division of tasks."
"Nice division, indeed," said Cornelius, seeming much provoked. "You forget that I want Daisy."
Our dwelling was honoured the following day by receiving the two strangers. They had made some progress in English; and though Signor Armari was still rather melancholy, we got on much better; but to my annoyance and chagrin, I could scarcely see anything of him or his friend. In the daytime, Cornelius kept me in his studio, which they never entered but twice in my absence; in the evening he either went out with them, or got me in a corner of the sofa, and sat most pertinaciously by me. Once, however, he was late, and accordingly found me between his two friends, hearing them through the universal verb, to love, which one pronounced, "I loaf," and the other, "I loove." They laughed good- humouredly at their own mistakes, and I laughed too; but Cornelius seemed to think it no joke, and looked on with a face of tragic gloom.
He took care this should happen no more. At the end of a fortnight our guests left us. Cornelius saw them off, and came back with a pleased and relieved aspect that did not escape his sister. I was sitting with her in the parlour by the fire, for the cold weather was beginning. He sat down by me, smoked a cigar with evident enjoyment, and declared those were the two best fellows he had ever met with--Schwab especially. Something in my face betrayed me; he took out his cigar, and hastily said:
"What is it, Daisy?"
"What is what, Cornelius?"