“I am quite real, I assure you,” Vane answered. “But why have you thrown away your cigarette?”
Stuart laughed as he answered:
“It is against my mother’s rules to smoke immediately before dinner, but I love my weed, and am scarcely conscious when I am smoking or not. Please forgive me. I have been a savage for so long, I have forgotten my good manners.”
“Ah, I want to hear all about your travels and adventures!” said Miss Charteris. “Have we time to stroll up and down for a while before dinner?”
“But you will be tired,” remonstrated Stuart, mindful of his mother’s injunctions; “and”—glancing at the small, dainty white feet—“I am afraid you will ruin your pretty shoes!”
“I am not afraid of either calamity,” Vane responded, with a smile; “however, let us split the difference and go to the conservatory.”
Stuart agreed willingly. He was most favorably impressed by his new cousin. She was no hypochondriacal creature, but a young, beautiful girl, and likely to prove a most agreeable companion. He glanced at her dress as they sauntered along the colonnade to the conservatory, mentally declaring it to be most charming and simple, deciding it to be most probably the work of her own hands, and would have been thunderstruck had any one informed him that the innocent-looking garment had cost nearly fifty pounds.
Vane Charteris saw her cousin’s admiration, and her heart thrilled. Once more she would taste the joy of power, she would no longer be neglected. A vision of future triumph filled her mind at that instant. She would wake from her indifference. The world should see her again as queen, reigning this time by charm and fascination as well as by her beauty. The color mounted to her cheeks, the light flashed in her eyes at the thought, and she turned with animation and interest to converse with the man beside her.
“You have a splendid home, Stuart,” she observed, after they had walked through the heavily scented conservatory to the drawing-room. “I am glad I have come.”
“And I am heartily glad to welcome you. I have heard so much of my Cousin Vane, such stories of triumphs and wonders, that I began to despair of ever receiving her here.”