After tea all the callers departed, and those who were house guests went to their rooms to dress for dinner.
Tom Willard, with great show of burlesque regret and tearful farewells, went to the hotel, that Miss Morton might have the room he had been occupying.
He promised to return for dinner, and gaily blew kisses to Madeleine as with his traps he was driven down the avenue.
At dinner, Schuyler Carleton’s place was vacant. It had been arranged next to Madeleine’s, and when fifteen minutes after the dinner hour he had not arrived, she haughtily accepted Tom Willard’s arm and led the way to the dining-room.
But having reached the table, she directed Tom to take his rightful seat, at some distance from her own, and Carleton’s chair remained empty at Madeleine’s side.
At first this was uncomfortably evident, but Madeleine was in gay spirits, and soon the whole party followed her lead, and the conversation was general and in a merry key.
The young hostess had never looked more regally beautiful. Her dark hair, piled high on her head, was adorned with a dainty ornament which, though only a twisted ribbon, was shaped like a crown, and gave her the effect of an imperious queen. Her low-cut gown of pale yellow satin was severe of line and accented her stately bearing, while her exquisitely modelled neck and shoulders were as white and pure as those of a marble statue. Save for a double row of pearls around her throat, she wore no ornaments, but on the morrow Carleton’s gift of magnificent diamonds would grace her bridal costume. The combination of haughty imperial beauty and a dazzling witchery of mood was irresistible, and the men and girls alike realized that never before had Madeleine seemed so wonderful.
After the dessert was placed on the table, Willard could stand it no longer, and, leaving his own place, he calmly appropriated Carleton’s vacant chair.
Madeleine did not reprove him, and Kitty French took occasion to whisper to her neighbor:
“‘’Twere better by far to have matched our fair cousin to brave Lochinvar.’”