Gita sprang to her feet wildly, her eyes darting about like those of a forest animal caught in a trap. “Oh, I can’t! I——”
She met Bylant’s smiling gaze, and her nerves, which had seemed to arch all over her body and hiss with a thousand voices, received a sharp admonition from her brain and subsided.
“Come along!” Her voice was gay again. “And Eustace, take off your wig.”
CHAPTER XXV
Gita, attended by Polly and Elsie until the last minute that she be given no time to change her mind, stood before the psyche mirror and smiled at her reflection. She had no intention of changing her mind, for she knew that such an opportunity to outshine all other women and etch an indelible picture into the minds of all beholders, was granted to few girls even on their wedding-day.
The mass of delicate lace billowed widely about her slender figure, and the long veil (exhumed from the chest later and almost as transparent as tulle) hung from a high coronet of orange-blossoms “built” by Polly and dipped in weak coffee. She had removed her wig, and her hair, wiry and vibrant, and of an intense dusky blackness, had been drawn forward to soften the uncompromising stiffness of the head-dress. She wore her rope of pearls, and, about the base of her throat, a string of larger pearls, a present from Eustace. They had belonged to his mother.
Her eyes blazed with excitement, and her mouth, which had begun to take an upward curve at the corners, was very full and very red. Polly took out her lip-stick with a sigh.
“You are the loveliest thing on earth, Gita,” announced Elsie, with the enthusiasm of both artist and friend. “If ever you are in the mood to hate life just remember tonight.”
“Night of your life,” agreed Polly. “Don’t make any mistake about it. Spin out the descent of that stair as long as you can. Such a chance doesn’t come twice in a lifetime. Come along.”
Pelham and John Trowbridge, a friend of Polly’s and of corresponding height, armed with large silver candelabra, stood near the head of the stair. (They had flatly refused to put on livery.) Polly posed Gita between them and regarded the tableau critically.