“Music!” groaned Irving. “I feel in my bones that somebody is going to sing. Us for the porch, Nixie.”
This party had been last to leave the dining-room, and already a large group of guests had gathered in the living-room, and were waiting. Irving was already taking long, quiet strides away from the scene of danger when Robert caught him by the arm.
“Heavens, Brute!” he gasped. “Look there! Is it—or isn’t it!”
Irving turned, and beheld at the other end of the room Rosalie Vincent, dressed in white, standing quietly, looking about her and smiling a little as if in question of her audience, and wondering what she should do for them.
Irving’s heart gave the most acrobatic bound of its existence. He stood fixed in his tracks.
“Do you see who that is, mother?” inquired Robert, leaning over the ladies.
Mrs. Bruce’s busy eyes sought her lorgnette.
Helen Maynard was first to realize who it was that stood there tall and fair in the fleecy white gown, with the golden coronet of her hair shining as her only ornament, and her bare throat and arms, round and slender against a dark background.
“Most extraordinary!” exclaimed Mrs. Nixon. “I never saw such a resemblance.”
She looked over at her brother in a neighboring chair. He was smoothing his mustache; and he nodded at her in reply.