"These are far too nice," she said simply, when Lady St. Maurice turned to go. "I have not been used to such luxury."
Lady St. Maurice left her with a sigh, and went downstairs. She had hoped to see the cold proud face relax a little at the many signs of thought in the preparations which had been made for her, and she was disappointed. She entered her sitting room thoughtfully, and went up to her husband.
"Geoffrey, she is horribly like him."
"If poor Marioni had had this girl's looks I should have felt more jealous," he answered lightly. "I'm almost sorry Lumley is here."
She shook her head.
"She is beautiful, but I don't think Lumley will admire her. He places expression before everything, and this girl has none. She must have been very unhappy, I think, or else she is very heartless!"
He stood with his back to the fire, twisting his mustache and warming himself.
"The fact is," he remarked, "you're disappointed because she didn't jump into your arms and cry a little, and all that sort of thing. Now, I respect the girl for it; for I think she was acting under constraint. Give her time, Adrienne, and I think you'll find her sympathetic enough. And as to the expression—well, I may be mistaken, but I should say that she had a sweeter one than most women, although we haven't seen it yet. Give her time, Adrienne. Don't hurry her."
It was two hours before they saw her again, and then she came into the drawing room just as the dinner gong was going. Neither of them had seen her save by the dim light of a single lamp, and even then she had been wrapped in a long traveling coat; and so, although Lord St. Maurice had called her beautiful, they were neither of them prepared to see her quite as she was. She wore a plain black net dinner gown, curving only slightly downward at the white throat, the somberness of which was partially relieved by an amber foundation. She had no jewelry of any sort, nor any flowers, and she carried only a tiny lace handkerchief in her left hand. But she had no need of a toilet or of adornment. That proud, exquisitely graceful carriage, which only race can give, was the dowry of her descent from one of the ancient families of Southern Europe; but the beauty of her face was nature's gift alone. It was beauty of the best and purest French type—the beauty of the aristocrats of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. The luxurious black hair was parted in the middle, and raised slightly over the temples, showing a high but delicately arched forehead. Her complexion was dazzling in its purity, but colorless. There was none of the harshness of the Sicilian type in her features, or in the lines of her figure. The severest critic of feminine beauty could have asked only for a slightly relaxed mouth, and a touch of humanity in her dark, still eyes; and even he, knowing that the great joys of womanhood—the joys of loving and being loved—were as yet untasted by her, would have held his peace, murmuring, perhaps, that the days of miracles were not yet passed, and a daughter of Diana had appeared upon the earth.
The little group, to whom her entrance was something like a thunderbolt, consisted only of Lord and Lady St. Maurice, and their son, Lord Lumley. He, although his surprise was the greatest, was the first to recover from it.