Mrs. Stanhope reminded her friend that she had been immured at Malta since leaving the Riviera.
“Oh, well, of course her fame has reached there by this time. Why, all Paris is talking about her—and you know yourself”—observed that astute lady, impressively—“how much it takes to make Paris stop and look at you.” Mrs. Stanhope said “Yes,” and wanted to know who The Beauty’s people were, and where she had come from.
“Oh, I don’t know,” declared her friend. “No one seems to inquire. She is so beautiful and sufficient in herself that one does not care much for the rest. They are immensely rich—recently, I believe—though you would never know it from her manner. She is charming and thoroughly well-bred. Her father, I hear, is a typical American business man—not much en évidence, you know. He leaves that to his daughter, and she does it very well. He is a Senator—or something—from the West, and made such a name for himself at Washington that they thought he was too bright to stay there, so they sent him over here to help settle that international treaty affair—you know perhaps—I don’t, I only pretend to.”
“How did she do it?” demanded Mrs. Stanhope, in that simply comprehensive way women have when talking about another woman.
“Oh, she just started right in. Courtelais raved over her, and her father paid him twenty thousand dollars to have her painted. The Colony took her up, and the rest just followed naturally. The portrait is really charming, though she was dressed—well, I don’t think any French girl would have sat in that costume.”
“Is she really so beautiful?”
“Well—not regularly beautiful, perhaps—but charming and fascinating, and awfully clever, they say—so clever that very few people suspect her of it, and—oh! well, you can judge for yourself to-morrow evening. By the way, everyone says she is engaged already—Comte de la Tour. You used to know him, I think.” She rose to go. “He is very much in love with her, that is evident.” She thought it best to let Mrs. Stanhope have that piece of news from herself. She did not wish her friend to be taken at a disadvantage, especially in her own house.
Mrs. Stanhope felt the least bit startled. She had known the Comte de la Tour very well indeed in Paris, several years before, and he had been very much in love with her, and had appeared quite genuinely broken-hearted when she refused him. She had not seen him—he had not been in Paris when she was there during the earlier part of the season—but with the comforting faith of people who have never been in love, she had always believed that he would get over his devotion to her, though she felt a rather curious sensation on hearing that her expectations had been so fully realized, and she felt a pardonable curiosity to see the girl who had made him forget her.
She dressed very carefully for the American Minister’s the next evening, and looked a little more than her usual handsome self, when her carriage turned rapidly into the Avenue Hoche. She was somewhat late, and although the Minister and his wife were old friends, she felt worried with herself, for she had made it a rule to be punctual at all social functions, and when she entered the rooms she could see that the guests wore that rather expectant air which signifies that dinner is already slightly behind time. She hurried forward and denounced herself in polite fashion, but her hostess assured her that several others had not yet arrived, and, much relieved, she turned to speak to a bright newspaper man, an old acquaintance, who had arrived in Paris during her absence.
“I am so glad to find you again,” he murmured in his drawl; “they tell me you have been to Malta. How fortunate for you! I suppose now you have been happy in an idyllic, out-of-the-world way, and have not heard a word about Brice’s accident, nor the newspaper duel, nor the New Beauty——”