"How good of you to cheer and charm me by coming here!" he said, in his most mournful and most mu sical tones. "I have dressed, expressly to receive you, in the prettiest clothes I have. Don't be surprised. Except in this ignoble and material nineteenth century, men have always worn precious stuffs and beautiful colors as well as women. A hundred years ago a gentleman in pink silk was a gentleman properly dressed. Fifteen hundred years ago the patricians of the classic times wore bracelets exactly like mine. I despise the brutish contempt for beauty and the mean dread of expense which degrade a gentleman's costume to black cloth, and limit a gentleman's ornaments to a finger-ring, in the age I live in. I like to be bright and I beautiful, especially when brightness and beauty come to see me. You don't know how precious your society is to me. This is one of my melancholy days. Tears rise unbidden to my eyes. I sigh and sorrow over myself; I languish for pity. Just think of what I am! A poor solitary creature, cursed with a frightful deformity. How pitiable! how dreadful! My affectionate heart--wasted. My extraordinary talents--useless or misapplied. Sad! sad! sad!
Please pity me."
His eyes were positively filled with tears--tears of compassion for himself! He looked at me and spoke to me with the wailing, querulous entreaty of a sick child wanting to be nursed. I was utterly at a loss what to do. It was perfectly ridiculous--but Iwas never more embarrassed in my life.
"Please pity me!" he repeated. "Don't be cruel. I only ask a little thing. Pretty Mrs. Valeria, say you pity me!"I said I pitied him--and I felt that I blushed as I did it.
"Thank you," said Miserrimus Dexter, humbly. "It does me good. Go a little further. Pat my hand."I tried to restrain myself; but the sense of the absurdity of this last petition (quite gravely addressed to me, remember!) was too strong to be controlled. I burst out laughing.
Miserrimus Dexter looked at me with a blank astonishment which only increased my merriment. Had I offended him? Apparently not.
Recovering from his astonishment, he laid his head luxuriously on the back of his chair, with the expression of a man who was listening critically to a performance of some sort. When I had quite exhausted myself, he raised his head and clapped his shapely white hands, and honored me with an "encore.""Do it again," he said, still in the same childish way. "Merry Mrs. Valeria, _you_ have a musical laugh--_I_ have a musical ear.
Do it again."
I was serious enough by this time. "I am ashamed of myself, Mr. Dexter," I said. "Pray forgive me."
He made no answer to this; I doubt if he heard me. His variable temper appeared to be in course of undergoing some new change. He sat looking at my dress (as I supposed) with a steady and anxious attention, gravely forming his own conclusions, steadfastly pursuing his own train of thought.
"Mrs. Valeria," he burst out suddenly, "you are not comfortable in that chair.""Pardon me," I replied; "I am quite comfortable.""Pardon _me,_" he rejoined. "There is a chair of Indian basket-work at that end of the room which is much better suited to you. Will you accept my apologies if I am rude enough to allow you to fetch it for yourself? I have a reason."He had a reason! What new piece of eccentricity was he about to exhibit? I rose and fetched the chair. It was light enough to be quite easily carried. As I returned to him, I noticed that his eyes were strangely employed in what seemed to be the closest scrutiny of my dress. And, stranger still, the result of this appeared to be partly to interest and partly to distress him.
I placed the chair near him, and was about to take my seat in it, when he sent me back again, on another errand, to the end of the room.