Curious to see what sort of a companion his wife was thus somewhat prematurely providing for Paula, he hastily advanced towards the little group from which her voice had proceeded, and found himself face to face with a brown-haired girl whose appealing glance and somewhat infantile mouth were in striking contrast to the dignity with which she carried her small head and managed her whole somewhat petite person.
“Miss Stuyvesant! my husband!” came in musical tones from his wife, and somewhat surprised to hear a name that but a moment before had been the uppermost in his mind, he bowed with courtesy and then asked if he was so happy as to speak to a daughter of Thaddeus Stuyvesant.
“If it will give you especial pleasure I will say yes,” responded the little miss with a smile that irradiated her whole face. “Do you know my father?”
“There are but few bankers in the city who have not that pleasure,” replied he with an answering look of regard. “I am especially happy to meet his daughter in my house tonight.”
There was something in his manner of saying this and in the short inquiring glance which at every opportunity he cast upon her bright young face with its nameless charm of mingled appeal and reserve, that astonished his wife.
“Miss Stuyvesant was in the carriage with Mrs. Fitzgerald,” said that lady with a certain dignity she knew well how to assume. “I am afraid if it had not been for that circumstance we should not have enjoyed the pleasure of her presence.” And with the rare tact of which she was certainly a mistress, as far as all social matters were concerned, she left the aspiring magnate of Wall Street to converse with the daughter of the man whom all New York bankers were expected to know, and hastened to join a group of ladies discussing ceramics before a huge placque of rarest cloissone.