“Who?—Oh, your Duke. Did he propose right off? Do tell me.” And she seated herself close beside her friend, and forgot that she was reforming the United States.
“No, but he told me that he had come over on purpose to see me.”
“That’s equal to a proposal,” said Augusta decidedly. “Englishmen are very cautious. They are much better brought up than ours. Which is only another warning that we must take ours in hand. It is shocking the way they frivol. I’d rather you married an American for this reason; but if you love the Duke of Bosworth, I have nothing to say. Besides, you’re the vine-and-tendril sort; I don’t know that you’d ever acquire any influence over a man; so it doesn’t much matter. Now tell me about the Duke, dearest; I am so glad that he has come.”
Mabel talked a steady stream for a half-hour, then hurried home to dress for the evening.
Mr. Forbes was standing before the fire in the drawing-room when his daughter entered, apparelled for the opera and subsequent ball. She wore a smart French gown of pale blue satin, a turquoise comb in her pale modishly dressed hair, and she carried herself with the spring and grace of her kind; but she was very pale, and there were dark circles about her eyes.
“You look worn out, my dear,” said her father, solicitously. “What have you been doing?”
Miss Forbes sank into a chair. “I went to two meetings, one at Hal’s and one in the slums. I spoke for the first time, and it has rather taken it out of me.”
“Would the victory of your ‘cause’ compensate for crow’s feet?”
“Indeed it would. I really do not care. I am so glad that I have no beauty to lose. I might not take life so seriously if I had. I am beginning to have a suspicion that Mary Gallatin and several others have merely taken up these great questions as a fad. Here comes mamma, I am glad, for I am hungry. I had no time for tea to-day.”
A portière was lifted aside by a servant, and Mrs. Forbes entered the room. But for the majesty of her carriage she looked younger than her daughter, so exquisitely chiselled were her features, so fresh and vivid her colouring. Virginia Forbes was thirty-nine and looked less than thirty. Her tall voluptuous figure had not outgrown a line of its early womanhood, her neck and arms were Greek. A Virginian by birth, she inherited her high-bred beauty from a line of ancestors that had been fathered in America by one of Elizabeth’s courtiers. Her eyes had the slight fullness peculiar to the Southern woman; the colour, like that of the hair, was a dark brown warmed with a touch of red. Her curved, scarlet mouth was not full, but the lips were rarely without a pout, which lent its aid to the imperious charm of her face. There were those who averred that upon the rare occasions when this lovely mouth was off guard it showed a hint in its modelling of self-will and cruelty. But few had seen it off guard.