Virginia Delaware looked down upon her with the amused tolerance of the superior classes.
"You may perhaps find a little silver on the dresser, maid," said she graciously.
END OF BOOK THREE
BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER I
THE ROYAL PROGRESS OF MR. AND MRS. RAWN
I
So they were married. Graystone Hall at last had a mistress worthy of its architect and decorator when—love and affection and other good considerations moving thereto, as the law hath it—the new Mrs. Rawn moved into the place of the old Mrs. Rawn. Thereafter matters went at least as merry as most marriage bells celebrating the nuptials of middle age and youth, of wealth and beauty.
As Mr. Rawn had spent a million dollars to free himself from one wife, he seemed willing to spend much more in the process of taking on another. It became current rumor that the one great diamond show of the western city was Virginia Rawn. The sobriquet, "The Lady of the Lightnings," passed from New York to Chicago and became permanent there. Not that that lady delighted in display; but there were occasional operatic or theatrical events which demanded compliance with her husband's wishes, in which event she blazed almost better than the best.
But, gradually, she showed the tastes of the aristocrat, as alien to vulgar display as to crude manners. Gradually the tone, color, atmosphere, of Graystone Hall began to change. The porcelains which Virginia Rawn purchased were not large and gorgeous, but a connoisseur would have called them worthy. The vast and brilliantly framed paintings came down one by one, and one by one masterpieces went up, selected by one who knew. The walks, the grounds, took on simpler and cleaner lines. Rawn of the International got a new credit as a person of taste. He was accepted as a collector, a patron of the arts, a connoisseur, in fact, yet more a worthy and a rising citizen.