"Madame Vanira will be at Lady Marion's ball on Tuesday," she said: "I am sorry that I shall not meet her."
"Are you not coming, mother?" he asked, with a certain secret hope that she was not.
"No; the earl has made an engagement for me, which I am compelled to keep," she said, "much to my regret."
And she spoke truthfully. The proud and haughty countess found herself much impressed by the grace, genius, and beauty of Madame Vanira.
Leone had looked forward to the evening of the ball as to an ordeal that must be passed through. She dreaded it, yet longed for it. She could not rest for thinking of it. She was to enter as a guest the house where she should have reigned mistress. She was to be the visitor of the woman who had taken her place. How should she bear it? how would it pass? For the first time some of the terrible pain of jealousy found its way into her heart—a pain that blanched her face, and made her tremble; a new pain to her in the fire of its burning.
When the night of the ball came it found her with a pale face; her usual radiant coloring faded, and she looked all the lovelier for it. She dressed herself with unusual care and magnificence.
"I must look my best to-night," she said to herself, with a bitter smile. "I am going to see the home that should have been my own. I am going to visit Lady Chandos, and I believed myself to be Lady Chandos and no other. I must look my best."
She chose a brocade of pale amber that looked like woven sunbeams; it was half covered with point lace and trimmed with great creamy roses. She wore a parure of rubies, presented by an empress, who delighted in her glorious voice; on her beautiful neck, white and firm as a pillar, she wore a necklace of rubies; on her white breast gleamed a cross of rubies, in which the fire flashed like gleams of light.
She had never looked so magnificently beautiful. The low dress showed the white shining arms and shoulders like white satin. The different emotions that surged through her whole heart and soul gave a softened tenderness to the beautiful, passionate face.
She was a woman at whose feet a man could kneel and worship; who could sway the heart and soul of a man as the wind sways the great branches of strong trees.