Léonie—the lean, clever-looking, deft-fingered French maid who had grown old in the service of her mistress—stood by the couch looking down at her handiwork with an air of pride: "Madame a voulu faire un petit bout de toilette pour Monsieur Berwick," she explained importantly. Poor Barbara was by now rather nervously aware that there was something about her own appearance to-night which did not please her godmother. Indeed, sitting there, in this lofty room full of beautiful and extremely ornate pieces of furniture and rich hangings, she felt acutely conscious that she was, as it were, out of the picture. Words were not needed to tell her that, for some mysterious reason, her godmother wished her to look well before this Mr. James Berwick, who, if Mrs. Turke was to be believed, seemed to come and go so often at the Priory, but regarding whom, she, Barbara, felt as yet no interest.
Almost involuntarily she answered the critical expression which rested on the clear-cut face. "I care so little how I look,—after all what does it matter?"
But more quickly than usual she realised the significance of the murmured words, "Nonsense, child, it does matter, very much!" and she divined the phrase, "A woman should always try to look her best." Barbara smiled as Léonie joined in with "Une jolie femme doît sa beauté à elle-même," adding, in response to another of those muffled questioning murmurs, "Mais oui, Madame, Monsieur Boringdon a dû venir avec Monsieur Berwick."
Mrs. Rebell looked up rather eagerly; if Oliver Boringdon were to be there this evening, and if outward appearance were of such consequence as these kind people, Madame Sampiero and the old Frenchwoman, seemed to think, then it was a pity that one of the only two people whom she had wished to impress favourably at Chancton should see her at a disadvantage.
Again came low murmurs of which the significance entirely escaped Barbara, but which Léonie had heard and understood: quickly the maid went across the great room, and in a moment her brown hands had pulled open a deep drawer in the Buhl wardrobe which had once adorned the bed chamber of the last Queen of France. Now Léonie was coming back towards her mistress' couch, towards Barbara, her arms laden with a delicate foam of old lace.
A few minutes of hard work with a needle and white thread, much eager chatter of French, and Barbara's thin white silk gown had been transformed from a straight and, according to the fashion of that day, shapeless gown, into a beautiful and poetic garment.
A gleam of amused pleasure flashed across Madame Sampiero's trembling lips and wide open blue eyes: she realised that a little thought, a little trouble, would transform her god-daughter, if not into a beauty, then into a singularly distinguished and attractive-looking young woman.
Like most beautiful people, Barbara Sampiero had always been generous in her appreciation of the beauty of others, and she would have been pleased indeed had Richard Rebell's daughter turned out as lovely as had been her mother,—lovely with that English beauty of golden hair and perfect colouring. But Barbara's charm, so far at least, seemed of the soul rather than of the body, and, recognising this fact, Madame Sampiero had at first felt disappointed, for her own experience—and in these matters a woman can only be guided by her own personal experience—was that in this world beauty of body counts very much more in obtaining for those who possess it their heart's desire than does beauty of soul.
The mistress of Chancton Priory had hesitated painfully before allowing Doctor McKirdy to write the letter which had bidden Barbara Rebell come to England. The old Scotchman, who to her surprise had urged Madame Sampiero to send for her god-daughter, regarded the coming of Barbara as a matter of comparatively small moment. If the experiment was not successful, well then Mrs. Rebell could be sent away again; but the mistress of the Priory knew that to herself the coming of Richard Rebell's daughter must either bring something like happiness, and the companionship for which she sometimes craved with so desperate a longing, or the destruction of the dignified peace in which she had known how to enfold herself as in a mantle.