When the night fell they separated reluctantly, to meet again by her appointment in half an hour in the great hall, for what reason he knew not; that she wished it was sufficient for him. There had come into Elizabeth's head a quaint conceit. She wished to surprise him. As she left him she ran hastily to the ancient wardrobe in her private apartment in which, with the prudent forethought of our ancestors, her mother's wedding robe was laid away in sprigs of lavender. Hastily doffing her own garments, and assisted by the skilful fingers of her maid, she arrayed herself therein.
The body of the dress was of heavily brocaded white satin, worn over moderate hoops; the bodice was cut low and square across the neck and shoulders and terminated in a pointed stomacher of delicate pale blue, laced over the front with silver cord. The short, rather full sleeves edged with priceless lace left the sweet young arms bare to the dimpled elbow. The overdress or panier, looped with gold cord on either side, was of a fugitive shade of pale wild rose; the dress was lifted in front to show her dainty feet in their diamond-buckled, preposterously high-heeled, pointed-toed, blue satin shoes, and rose-colored, gold-clocked stockings. When she stood up, a little train swept the floor.
The old-fashioned waist of the gown was very decolleté; she blushed at the thought of it; but as it was in the picture, she draped it with delicate tulle, less white than her neck itself, and caught here and there by tiny diamond stars, and so she put it bravely on. To re-dress her hair was an easy matter; the low coiffure, with the hair unpowdered and rolled above her broad, low brow, after the style of the beautiful but venal Pompadour, and adorned with three delicate white ostrich tips, and with a string of pearls intertwined in its meshes, was most becoming. With eager hands rummaging among her mother's jewels, she soon found and twined the brilliant necklace of the picture about her throat; on her breast she pinned a great sunburst of diamonds, in the midst of which flashed a gleaming sapphire. A little black patch or two on her cheeks completed her preparations.
Then, full of anticipation for her lover, she ran down to the hall. To her great disappointment, the room was empty; he had not yet come. She waited a moment; her eyes fell upon the frame from which the remnants of the tattered painting had been removed, which was leaning on a dais in front of an alcove against the wall, just beneath the spot where the picture had hung. A new thought occurred to her. Why not? She eagerly pushed the old chair behind the frame, arranged it as it had been in the picture, and sat down in exactly the same position her mother had assumed when the portrait had been painted. She had often practised it before the mirror, and had acquired the pose perfectly.
The rich, dark old tapestry of Arras formed an appropriate background, and life and love and expectation threw a light in her eyes and painted upon her cheek hues that no skill, however cunning, could have duplicated, no palette save that of Nature in her rarest mood supplied. The girl had forgotten, for the moment, her engagement to another; she had forgotten the impending fate which hung over the man she truly loved. She was only a woman--loving--beloved--waiting. The thought of his surprise, the consciousness of her own beauty, deepened the color on her cheeks, and the palpitation of her bosom told of the beating of her heart.
She looked hastily about her, and, as the door opened, settled herself in the position of sweet repose of the picture. Never had earth borne a fairer woman. The first sound that struck her ear was the somewhat harsh voice of her guardian. A wave of disappointment swept across her. She half rose, as if to discover herself, and then, as she heard her lover's voice, she sank back and waited, motionless and expectant.
"Lieutenant Barry O'Neill, Marquis de Richemont, I bid you good evening," said the admiral, genially.
"Sir, good evening to you," replied O'Neill, something warning him of an impending struggle.
"Allow me," said the admiral, passing his snuffbox, from which both gentlemen helped themselves elaborately.
"I have here," continued the old man, drawing a piece of paper from the desk as they walked toward the centre of the room, neither of them noticing the picture at the moment, as it was behind them, "some account of the life and adventures of one Gerald O'Neill, sometime gentleman of the County Clare in Ireland, who rebelled against his gracious Majesty King George II., of blessed memory, in the year 1745. His lands were escheated to the crown, his life forfeited. Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for him, he escaped to the continent, entered the service of Louis XV., and became--"