Drawing aside the draperies of the door Chester steps [[229]]in to be enchanted by the beauty that bursts on his eyes.
The room is lighted by hanging lamps of perfumed oil, adorned with flowers in vases of Venetian glass, but standing with a savage little pout upon her coral lips is the goddess of this fair domain. She is robed in lightest evening dress of floating gauzy tissue of palest amber. This soft floating stuff is thrown about her in great masses, giving an almost cloud-like effect, from which her round arms and beautiful bosom and shoulders rise ivory like, gleaming under the lights as if issuing from some floating summer cloud just tinged by the sun’s rays. Above the white column of her neck posed in a piquant grace is her exquisite face, covered by the soft and wavy tresses of her dark hair, to which flowers give a soft effect, and lighted by indignant eyes that flash now with brightest brunette gleam. Thus she stands looking the fairy of a fairy scene.
She has apparently been very eagerly and savagely discontented, for a little foot that peeps from under a petticoat of Malines’ lace is beating a drum solo on the polished floor, and her eyes, though scintillating, are teary as Guy enters. These light up now with radiant happiness and joyous sparkle, and she is at his side murmuring welcome. A second after she whispers: “I thought you were never coming. You could not have been very eager!”
“I had business.”
“Business? What business has a lazy dandy of the army on sick leave?” and Doña Hermoine puts doubting nose into the air.
“Business getting my fortune in such shape that I can make proper showing to your father when I demand your hand from him,” answers Guy, telling for once the truth; but adding another link in that strange chain which leads up to the wonders Providence holds in her hand for him.
“Oh, you needn’t have thought of that,” cries the girl. “I have money enough for both. Do you suppose I marry you for your money, Guido, when I have princely estates in Italy that are to be all yours, my lord?” And she courtesies before him, then mutters pleadingly: “You’ve only kissed me once!”
“How could I when you had your nose in the air?” [[230]]
“That brought my lips nearer to yours,” she laughs.
But during the evening she has no reason to complain of this neglect again; for Guy has been gazing on her beauty, that seems to him more wondrous than ever, and drinks it in as a man does strong wine that almost makes him lose his head.