CHAPTER CLXXXII.
LAURA MORTIMER’S NEW INTRIGUES.
We must now return to Laura Mortimer, whom we left in Paris, and of whom we have lost sight for some time.
It was in the evening of the fourth day after the incidents recorded in the preceding chapter, that Laura was seated in her handsome drawing-room, wrapped up in deep meditation.
Her thoughts were not, however, of a disagreeable nature;—for ever and anon the fire of triumph flashed from her fine eyes, and her rich moist lips were wreathed into a smile.
She held a book open in her hand; but her gaze was fixed upon the ceiling as she lay, rather than sate, on the voluptuous cushions of the purple velvet ottoman.
The windows were open, and a gentle evening breeze, which had succeeded the stifling heat of a Parisian summer-day, fanned her countenance and wantoned with the luxuriant ringlets that floated over her naked shoulders,—those shoulders so white, so plump, so exquisitely shaped!
The perfumes of choice flowers and the odour of ravishing oriental scents rendered the atmosphere fragrant: gold and silver fish were disporting in an immense crystal globe which stood upon a marble table between the casements—and two beautiful canaries were carolling in a superb cage suspended in one of those open windows.
On the table near which Laura was placed, stood several crystal dishes containing the finest fruit that the Parisian market could yield,—the luscious pine, the refreshing melon, strawberries of extraordinary size and exquisite flavour, cherries of the richest red, and mulberries of the deepest purple.
A bottle of champagne stood in a cooler filled with ice; and in the middle of the table was a superb nosegay of flowers.
The entire appearance of the room and its appointments was luxurious in the extreme,—comfort being combined with elegance, and the means of enjoyment distributed with taste;—while she—the mistress of the place—the presiding genius of the scene—was pillowed voluptuously upon the immense velvet cushions. So complete was the abandonment of her attitude, in her deep reverie, that she seemed ten hundred times more charming than when her artifice devised a thousand studied graces in order to effect a conquest and captivate a lover.