You can guess with what artful design Mrs. Morley put that question point-blank, fixing keen eyes on Isaura while she put it. She saw the heightened colour, the quivering lip of the girl thus abruptly appealed to, and she said inly: “I was right—she loves him!”
“I heard of Mr. Vane last night—accidentally.”
“Is he coming to Paris soon?”
“Not that I know of. How charmingly that wreath becomes you! it suits the earrings so well, too.”
“Frank chose it; he has good taste for a man. I trust him with my commissions to Hunt and Roskell’s but I limit him as to price, he is so extravagant—men are, when they make presents. They seem to think we value things according to their cost. They would gorge us with jewels, and let us starve for want of a smile. Not that Frank is so bad as the rest of them. But a propos of Mr. Vane—Frank will be sure to see him, and scold him well for deserting us all. I should not be surprised if he brought the deserter back with him, for I send a little note by Frank, inviting him to pay us a visit. We have spare rooms in our apartments.”
Isaura’s heart heaved beneath her robe, but she replied in a tone of astonishing indifference: “I believe this is the height of the London season, and Mr. Vane would probably be too engaged to profit even by an invitation so tempting.”
“Nous verrons. How pleased he will be to hear of your triumphs! He admired you so much before you were famous: what will be his admiration now! men are so vain—they care for us so much more when people praise us. But till we have put the creatures in their proper place, we must take them for what they are.”
Here the Venosta, with whom the poor Colonel had exhausted all the arts at his command for chaining her attention, could be no longer withheld from approaching Mrs. Morley, and venting her admiration of that lady’s wreath, earrings, robes, flounces. This dazzling apparition had on her the effect which a candle has on a moth—she fluttered round it, and longed to absorb herself in its blaze. But the wreath especially fascinated her—a wreath which no prudent lady with colourings less pure, and features less exquisitely delicate than the pretty champion of the rights of women, could have fancied on her own brows without a shudder. But the Venosta in such matters was not prudent. “It can’t be dear,” she cried piteously, extending her arms towards Isaura. “I must have one exactly like. Who made it? Cara signora, give me the address.”
“Ask the Colonel, dear Madame; he chose and bought it,” and Mrs. Morley glanced significantly at her well-tutored Frank.
“Madame,” said the Colonel, speaking in English, which he usually did with the Venosta—who valued herself on knowing that language and was flattered to be addressed in it—while he amused himself by introducing into its forms the dainty Americanisms with which he puzzled the Britisher—he might well puzzle the Florentine,—“Madame, I am too anxious for the appearance of my wife to submit to the test of a rival schemer like yourself in the same apparel. With all the homage due to a sex of which I am enthused dreadful, I decline to designate the florist from whom I purchased Mrs. Morley’s head-fixings.”