“It is the sweetest possibility on earth, my Eva; one that I have had in my heart of hearts since we first met.”
“How strange,” murmured the girl. “But you are so fearless. I never dared look so far.”
“But now, my girl, now!”
Ivon threw his arms around her drooping figure, and kissed her with passionate warmth.
A woman had been lying insensible back of a little jungle of broad-leaved tropical plants, out of which a slender tree rose to the glass roof. The coldness of the marble, and some stray drops that reached her from the fountain, brought her back to life, when she heard the low murmur of voices close by, and arose to leave the conservatory.
The place where Ivon and Eva stood was sheltered from sight by the plants that concealed this lady; but through the leaves she saw the girl’s face, bathed in blushes, as it escaped from the first kisses of love—and the look of intense happiness that flushed it, stung her to the soul. One man alone was in her thoughts, and his supposed presence there, while she lay stricken lifeless, by the cruel truth he had told her, was maddening.
A stir among the plants drew Eva’s attention that way. She saw a pair of white arms flung upward, on which great jewels flashed in the moonlight of the lamps, and shrunk away from Ivon, passing to the other side of the fountain, startled and ashamed.
Before Ivon could speak or follow her, Mrs. Lambert rushed by the fountain, and, seizing Eva by the arm, looked fiercely into her face.
“Never, never, while you and I live, shall you marry that man! Girl, remember that I have warned you! Speak to him—look at him again at your peril! Some things are impossible—this is one. Turn those eyes from my face—never dare to look at me again.”
Like a storm, the woman had burst upon Eva; her face was as white as snow; her colorless lips trembled. The diamonds quivering with fire on her throat and head, were less brilliant than her wild, fierce eyes. Before Eva could speak, or Ivon move, she had swept out of the conservatory, without casting a look on the young man.