An archduke of one of the European courts was just then the guest of the queen, and he had promised to honor Hexham House with his presence.
"He shall see such lovely women," said the duchess to her husband, "that he shall go back to his own country in despair."
To Lady Amelie she had said, laughingly: "Look your very loveliest. I want you to make a conquest of the archduke."
And that queen of coquettes thought to herself that her hands on that eventful evening would indeed be full. Not one word did the diplomatic old colonel say to Basil, but that young man was not quite himself. He had been wonderfully attracted by Lady Lisle's face; he read poetry, love of romance and everything else beautiful and piquant in it. Of all the women he had seen she was the only one who had interested him. He wondered whether the mind matched the peerless face. She must be clever, witty, brilliant, he thought, or she would not have kept all those men enchained as she did. He was very anxious to see her again.
"If she is like everyone else," he said, "I shall soon be disenchanted, but if she speaks as she looks, she will indeed be peerless among women."
He longed for the evening. He said nothing of her, but he talked so incessantly of the Duchess of Hexham, that the colonel understood exactly where his thoughts were, and smiled again most knowingly to himself.
He looked at his young kinsman in his faultless evening dress, and said to himself that there was not in all England a more noble or handsome man.
Lady Amelie called all the skill of the milliner to her aid; her dress was superb and effective—gold flowers on a white ground—a dress that irresistibly reminded one of sunbeams; it fell around her in statuesque folds that would have driven a sculptor to despair. Her beautiful neck and white arms were bare. She wore a diamond necklace of almost priceless value; her dark, shining hair was crowned with a circlet of the same royal stones; a diamond bracelet clasped one rounded arm. As she moved the light shone on her dress and gleamed on her jewels, until one was dazed with her splendor.
Lady Amelie was very particular about her flowers. On this evening, with her costly dress and magnificent jewels, she would have nothing but white daphnes. Did she know that the sweet, subtle fragrance of a daphne reaches the senses long before the odor of other flowers touches them? As she surveyed herself in the mirror, she felt devoutly satisfied.
"I shall be able to convert Basil Carruthers, Esq., to anything I like," she said; "if he has resisted all the world, he will yield to me."