"Yes," I said; "he is my mother's nephew."
"Then he is your cousin?" said my companion. Another of those penetrative glances fell on me. They were peculiar; they flashed upon me, or through me, as keen and clear as the flash of a sabre in the sun; and out of eyes in which a sunlight of merriment or benignity was even then glowing. Both glowed upon me just at this moment, so I did not mind the keen investigation. Indeed, I never minded it. I learned to know it as one of Mr. Thorold's peculiarities. Now, Dr. Sandford had a
good eye for reading people, but it never flashed, unless under strong excitement. Mr. Thorold's were dancing and flashing and sparkling with fifty things by turns; their fund of amusement and power of observation were the first things that struck me, and they attracted me too.
"Then he is your cousin?"
"Of course, he is my cousin."
I thought Mr. Thorold seemed a little bit grave and silent for a moment; then he rose up, with that benign look of his eyes glowing all over me, and told me there was the drum for parade. "Only the first drum," he added; so I need not be in a hurry. Would I go home before parade?
I thought I would. If Preston was pacing up and down the side of the camp ground, I thought I did not want to see him nor to have him see me, as he was there for what I called disgrace. Moreover, I had a secret presentiment of a breezy discussion with him the next time there was a chance.
And I was not disappointed. The next day in the afternoon he came to see us. Mrs. Sandford and I were sitting on the piazza, where the heat of an excessive sultry day was now relieved a little by a slender breeze coming out of the north-west. It was very hot still. Preston sat down and made conversation in an abstracted way for a little while.
"We did not see you at the hop the other night, Mr. Gary," Mrs. Sandford remarked.
"No. Were you there?" said Preston.