As morning after morning passed without the arrival of other mysterious boxes of flowers or of significant messages, the Marquise began to watch Loris Dumaresque more than was usual with her. He was the only one who knew; had he, educated by some spirit of jest, been the sender of the blossoms?
And inconsistent as it may appear when one remembers her avowed fear of discovery, yet from the moment that suspicion entered her mind the charm was gone from the blossoms and the days to follow, and she felt for the first time a resentment towards Monsieur Incognito.
Her reason told her this was an inevitable consequence, through resentment forgetfulness would come.
But her heart told her––?
Her presence at the charitable fete held by Madame la General at the Hotel Dulac was her first response, in a social way to the invitations of her Parisian acquaintances. A charity one might support without in any way committing oneself to further social plunges. She expected to feel shy and strange; she expected to be bored. But since Maman wished it so much––!
There is nothing so likely to banish shyness as success. The young Marquise could not but be conscious that she attracted attention, and that the most popular women of the court who had been pleased to show their patronage by attendance, did not in the least eclipse her own less pretentious 65 self. People besieged Madame Dulac for introductions, and to her own surprise the debutante found herself enjoying all the gay nothings, the jests, the bright sentences tossed about her and forming a foundation for compliments delicately veiled, and the flattering by word or glance that was as the breath of life to those people of the world.
She was dressed in white of medieval cut. Heavy white silk cord was knotted about the slender waist and touched the embroidered hem. The square neck had also the simple finish of cord and above it was the one bit of color; a flat necklace of etruscan gold fitted closely about the white throat, holding alternate rubies and pearls in their curiously wrought settings. On one arm was a bracelet of the same design; and the linked fillet above her dark hair gleamed, also, with the red of rubies.
It was the age of tarletan and tinsel, of delicate zephyrs and extremes in butterfly effects. Hoop-skirts were persisted in, despite the protests of art and reason; so, the serenity of this dress, fitting close as a habit, and falling in soft straight folds with a sculpturesque effect, and with the brown-eyed Italian face above it, created a sensation.
Dumaresque watched her graciously accepting homage as a matter of course, and smiled, thinking of his prophecy that she would be magnificent at twenty-five;––she was so already.
Some women near him commented on the simplicity of her attire.