Matthew
Kendrick and his grandson Richard entered upon the scene of the Grays'
Christmas Eve party it should be at the moment when Mr. Rufus Gray and
his niece Roberta were dancing a quadrille together. Richard had just
been received by his hosts and had turned from them to look about him,
when his searching eye caught sight of the pair. This was the precise
moment--he always afterward recalled it--when his heart gave its first
great, disconcerting leap at sight of her, such a leap as he had never
known could shake a man to the foundations.
He had never seen precisely this Roberta before; he explained it to
himself in that way. It was a good explanation. Any sane man who saw her
for the first time that night must instantly have fallen under her
spell.
The Christmas party was the event of the year dearest to Roberta's
heart. The planning for it, since she had been old enough to take her
part, had been in her hands; it was she who was responsible for every
detail of decoration. The great attic room, which was a glorious
playroom the rest of the year, was transformed on Christmas into a
fairyland. The results were brought about in much the same way as in
other places of revelry, with lighting and draping and the use of
evergreens and flowers; but somehow one felt that no drawing-room
similarly treated could have been half so charming as the big attic
spaces with their gables.
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