"Humph!" muttered Godfrey, lugubriously. "But we are doomed not to spend it together. We have received an invitation to dine this evening at Ravenhall, where a small and select company is assembling to welcome Master Ivar home. He returns to-night from the continent. The earl's carriage will call for us at six, so we can't very well decline."
Beatrice pouted her pretty lips. Simple in her tastes, unconventional in her habits, she disliked the stately banquets, the funereal grandeur, of Ravenhall. She would not, however, oppose her brother, and that same night found them both within the drawing-room of Ravenhall, conversing with their distant kinsman, the Earl of Ormsby.
He was a man verging upon sixty; his hair and moustache were of an iron grey; his eyes somewhat dimmed by long study; his features fine and striking, but marked by an air of profound melancholy.
He received Godfrey kindly, and made inquiries as to his medical practice, but it was clear to all that his interest centred chiefly in Beatrice, whom he kissed with an old-fashioned courtesy.
Beatrice's figure was small and graceful, and her features, if not precisely regular, were nevertheless very pretty, and rendered more attractive by the sparkling colour and the vivacious expression that played over them. She wore an evening dress of white silk with a cluster of violets at her breast, a diamond star gleaming in her bronzed hair, which was tied in a knot behind in antique Greek fashion. In Godfrey's opinion his sister had never looked more charming than on this evening.
"You have the fairest face in all the county," said the old earl, tenderly stroking her hair. "I wish that Ivar would think so," he added significantly.
It was not the first time that he had given expression to this wish in the presence of Beatrice.
"Did you notice what he said, Trixie," said Godfrey, when he had found an opportunity of whispering to her. "He wants to see you married to Ivar."
But Beatrice Ravengar tossed her head in scorn.