"Mercy, I love you!" he whispered.
The breathless words brought her back from dreamland, with its mists and its dim beauties—back to a London ball
room, back to fading humanity and faded flowers. The utter weariness and cheapness of it all struck her painfully, the passionate cry of love associated itself in her mind with the rustle and frippery of fashion.
"My life is his of whom we have spoken," she said gently in response to his beseeching glance, as her hostess, a bright, fashionable woman, hurried up and whispered effusively: "Wait here a moment, dear. I have at last found some one whom I am sure will please you. He is very rich and handsome, quite a king in the world of fashion, and yet a Christian gentleman—and oh, so wise! We call him our Ideal."
She came back accompanied by a tall, fine man. Everybody thought him beautiful—"pure Greek, you know"; but Lady Mercy started back in terror, recovering herself the next minute. To her he was hideous—his mouth misshapen, his eyes a dull red. Was it because her own soul was so pure that she saw people's minds, not their faces, and when a mind was evil its chief vice shone through its fleshly covering like a beacon?
"Delighted to meet you, Lady Mercy; will you dance?"
"No, thank you."
"We will sit it out, then, and talk. By the way, our mutual friend, Lady R——, tells me that you are much dis
tressed over the condition of the unemployed in our great city?"
"Yes, I want mother to devise a scheme for helping them. I have seen so much suffering since I have been here."