As this portion of “Prado's” career deals with certain personalities which would be easily recognized here, even under a pseudonym, it is better, considering the nature of the circumstances, to dismiss it with this brief allusion.
CHAPTER XIX.
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING.
Among the passengers on board the Cunard steamer which made its way up to its moorings in the Mersey on a misty and stormy morning three months after the tragedy which had taken place at Niagara Falls were Count Frederick de Vaugelade and his two English fellow-travelers, Mr. Harcourt and Lord Arthur Fitzjames. The intimacy between the three young men had become very much closer, and Frederick was under promise to visit each of them at his father's country-seat as soon as the London season was over.
On the day after their arrival in London Lord Arthur called at Frederick's hotel in Piccadilly, and after taking him for a lounge in the Row, and thence to lunch at his club, proceeded to his father's house in Park lane and introduced his friend to his mother and sisters. From that time forth Frederick became almost a daily visitor at the Marquis of Kingsbury's house.
His great attraction there was Lady Margaret, familiarly called “Pearl” in the family, a charming little brunette, with large, mischievous gray eyes and a joyful, light-hearted disposition which made her a general favorite. She set up a desperate flirtation with Frederick, and the latter began to believe that luck was decidedly with him, and that it only depended on himself to become a member of one of the greatest families of the United Kingdom.
Lady Margaret's elder sister, Lady Alice, appeared, however, from the first to be prejudiced against the young man, and showed him by her marked coldness that she at least was not following the general example of admiring everything that he did or said. Indeed, he soon realized that she might become in an emergency a very serious obstacle to his matrimonial projects.
The marquis himself took an immense fancy to Frederick, and introduced him everywhere with such marked favor that the hopes of the young man began to grow into certitude.