He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Must try to teach her a simpler prayer,” gruffly. “What’s this, something she’s dropped?” and he picked up the crushed paper parcel on the floor. It contained a little, headless stalk wrapped in silver foil. The rosebud top had rolled under the table in Zilla’s struggle with him. He knew that during the afternoon there had been an excursion made to a distant greenhouse by Mrs. Trotley and Zilla, and had guessed that it was to obtain a boutonnière for him.
“Poor child,” he muttered; “her rosebud shall go to the dance,” and taking it in his well-shaped hands, he, by means of one of his surgeon’s needles and a bit of thread, quickly fastened bud and stalk together and placed them in the silk lapel of his coat.
The coat he took off and laid carefully on the bed, and then proceeded to exchange the shirt blistered by Zilla’s tears for a fresh one.
A quarter of an hour later he was standing in front of the sleigh waiting for him by the pavement and attentively scrutinizing Zilla’s windows. Yes; the curtains were drawn slightly apart. He threw back his topcoat, pointed to the rosebud, and waving his hand to her entered the sleigh.
“By love I have won her, by love I must keep her,” soliloquized Camperdown, as his sleigh traversed the distance between his house and the Arm.
He soon arrived among the vehicles, opened and closed, that were dashing up to Pinewood and depositing their occupants at a side entrance to the house, the large front hall being given up to dancing. By a back stairway he was directed to a dressing room, and joining a stream of people, for Mrs. Colonibel’s dance was in reality a ball, proceeded down the wide staircase to the drawing rooms. Mrs. Colonibel, magnificent in pink satin, was receiving her guests inside the back drawing-room door. Colonel Armour, the handsomest man present, in spite of his snowy hair, was with her, as also was Valentine. Stanton was not visible. Beside Mrs. Colonibel stood Vivienne, dressed as usual in white, and receiving the salutations of the many friends of the house, not with the shy, uncertain manner of the débutante, but rather with the serene and conventional reserve of a woman of the world.
“Both smiling angelically and neither of them enjoying it,” muttered Camperdown, pushing aside the purple train of a lady’s dress with his foot, and stepping behind Mrs. Colonibel. “Solomon in all his glory wasn’t a patch on her,” surveying the back of her elaborately-trimmed gown. “And ma’m’selle hasn’t an ornament. Sensible girl! This is a frightful ordeal for her, this plunge into society in a place that her parents fled from. Far better for Flora to have given her a tea; much more suitable for the coming out of a young girl. That’s what we’ll give Zilla. But I must perform my devoir,” and he fell in behind a group of ladies who were coming up to greet their hostess, followed by the gentlemen of their family.
Mrs. Colonibel’s fascinating smile was met by an encouraging one on his part, and pressing gently the white-gloved hand of the girl beside her, he passed on to make way for another bevy of ladies. Nodding to men acquaintances, and bowing to every woman whose eye he could not escape, he passed through the room and along the verandas, which had been covered in for the evening.
“As gorgeous as the sun at midsummer, Will Shakespeare would say,” he soliloquized. “Light, heat, music, jewels, fine raiment on pretty, painted peacocks, strutting about to show their tails to each other—Flora’s idea of heaven. Wonder if Stargarde is about?” With a wholesome fear of imperiling delicate silks and laces, he cautiously re-entered the hall, lifted up his eyes, and saw Stargarde and Judy bending over the railing of the circular well in the third story of the house. He smiled at them, and in a few minutes they heard his step on the stairway.
“Oh, what a dude!” exclaimed Judy. “Just observe his broadcloth and fine linen, Stargarde, and his boutonnière, and perfume too, I believe; that’s the little wildcat’s doings.”