She passed swiftly along to her own suite. It was empty. The little Count was downstairs, agreeably occupied in comparing symptoms with a fellow health crank he had discovered.
With a quick sigh of relief at his absence she flung herself into a chair and lit a cigarette, smoking rapidly and exhaling the smoke in quick, nervous jerks. The long, pliant fingers which held the cigarette were not quite steady.
“Tout va bien!” she muttered restlessly. “All goes well! Assurément, his punishment will come.” She bent her head. “Que Dieu le veuille!” she whispered passionately.
Jean took a final and not altogether displeased survey of herself in the mirror before descending to the big salle where the fancy-dress ball was to be held. She had had her dinner served to her in her room so that she might rest the longer, and now, as there came wafted to her ears the preliminary grunts and squeals and snatches of melody of the hotel orchestra in process of tuning up, she was conscious of a pleasant glow of anticipation.
There was nothing strikingly original about the conception of her costume. It represented “Autumn,” and had been designed for a fancy-dress ball of more than a year ago—before the death of Jacqueline had suddenly shuttered down all gaiety and mirth at Beirnfels. But, simple as it was, it had been carried out by an artist in colour, and the filmy diaphanous layers of brown and orange and scarlet, one over the other, zoned with a girdle of autumn-tinted leaves, served to emphasise the russet of beech-leaf hair and the topaz-gold of hazel eyes.
Madame de Varigny’s glance swept the girl with approval as they entered the great salle together.
“But it is charming, your costume! Regarde, Henri”—turning to the Count, who, as a swashbuckling d’Artagnan, was getting into difficulties with his sword. “Has it not distinction—this costume d’automne?”
The Count retrieved himself and, hitching his sword once more into position, poured forth an unembarrassed stream of Gallic compliment.
Madame de Varigny herself was looking supremely handsome as Cleopatra. Jean reflected that her eyes,—slumberous and profound, with their dusky frame of lashes and that strange implacability she always sensed in them—might very well have been the eyes of the Egyptian queen herself.