THE GLASS OF FASHION.
Doris went back to the house scarcely knowing whether she was awake or dreaming. Could it be possible that she had promised to be Percy Levant’s wife? She stood for a moment outside the door of Lady Despard’s boudoir, trying to realize all that had passed, and the step she had taken so strangely, so suddenly, and when Lady Despard called out, “Is that you, Doris?” she started like one awakening from sleep.
“Yes, it is I,” she said. “There is your bracelet.”
“Oh, thank you, dear. I am afraid you have had a hard search! Why—what is the matter?” she broke off to exclaim as Doris turned her face to the light. “Why, dear, you are as white as a ghost, and your hands”—taking them anxiously—“are burning. Doris, you have taken a chill! You foolish child, to stay out so long, and on account of this stupid bracelet. Why, it isn’t of the slightest consequence! Go to bed at once, dear. Stay, I’ll come up with you. You look dreadfully ill!”
“I am not ill,” said Doris, and she sank down on the leopard skin at Lady Despard’s feet. “I have something to tell you, Lady Despard. It was not your bracelet that kept me so long; I—I have been talking to Mr. Levant.”
“To Percy Levant! He was there still? What could he have to say? Ah! You don’t mean to tell me, Doris, that he has proposed to you?” exclaimed her ladyship, in a tone of suppressed excitement.
“Yes,” said Doris, in a low voice; “he has asked me to be his wife.”
“And—and you said ‘No,’ of course?”
“I said ‘Yes,’” replied Doris.
Her ladyship sank back, and stared at the pale, lovely face.