It was then that Philip Rutley, impersonating Lord Beauchamp, was ushered in, accompanied by Mr. Joseph Corway.
“Ah! My Lord,” greeted Constance arising from her seat. “This delightful corner has lured us to forget to welcome you at the portal of our home. Allow me the pleasure of introducing Miss Hazel Brooke, and you, Mr. Corway,—well you know we are always ‘at home’ to you.”
As Rutley deliberately placed a monocle to his eye, he said, “A corner with such an entrancing vista,” carelessly waving his hand toward the open, “is a pardonable lure to dreamy forgetfulness.”
Then he stared at the girl and, as he supposed, conveyed the desired impression, muttered: “Charming!” and that word, uttered with quiet and apparently involuntary emphasis, at once made Hazel Brooke his friend, and, to add to the favorable impression which Rutley perceived he had created, he bowed low and said suavely: “Miss Brooke will permit me to say, I rejoice in her acquaintance.”
“Your Lordship may find me a deceiver.”
“I shall not believe so winsome a flower can be unreal.” And he again fixed the monocle to his eye and stared at her in pleased assurance.
“Art simulates many charming things of nature,” remarked Mrs. Thorpe, and she slyly glanced at Hazel.
The girl almost laughed; but her gentle breeding came to the rescue, and she bore Rutley’s stare with admirable nonchalance, until Mr. Corway, feeling a little amused at Lord Beauchamp’s monopoly of the girl’s attention answered Mrs. Thorpe: “Yet nature cannot be excelled in anything that is beautiful in art.”
For which he received from the girl a smile that thrilled him with a conviction that no lord, no croesus, nor commoner, could dethrone him from her heart.
The ordeal in which Hazel found herself under Rutley’s disconcerting stare, was terminated by Mrs. Thorpe.