“Oh, there is perfect freedom,” said Dylar. “But Iona is only twenty-six and Elena scarcely over forty years of age. Both may marry yet. Now there is a gentleman coming in who wishes very much to see you. He has just come from England, and will return in a few days. Shall I call him?”
She consented cordially, and Dylar beckoned the young man to them, and having presented him, retired and left the two together. A moment later she saw him go out with Iona by the way leading upstairs. They were going either to the library or terrace.
How well they looked together, though Iona was almost as tall as Dylar. She wore amber-color that evening, which became her, and her cheeks were crimson, her eyes brilliant. For a little while Tacita had some difficulty in attending to what her new companion was saying, and in making the proper replies. Then something in his manner pleased her, and drew her from her abstraction.
He was simply a well-bred young Englishman in a sort of masquerade, which, however, became him wonderfully. He had hair as golden as her own, and he wore dark blue. While talking with him, Tacita, woman-like, looked at the wide lace ruffle that fell back on his sleeve. It had a ground of fairy lightness, a vrai reseau as strong as it was light, with little wide-winged swallows all over it in a fine close tela, with a few open stitches in the head and wings. She wondered where she had read of swallows that
—“hawked the bright flies in the hollows
Of delicate air.”
“You are admiring my ruffles,” the young man said with the greatest frankness. “They were made here, and belonged to my father. I have refused a good deal of money for them. Of course you have learned that they make beautiful lace here. I think it the finest lace made in the world, taking it all in all. Look at that dress of yours, now. How firm and clear it is! That’s pillow lace, though, and this is point. There’s a kind of cobweb ground to some rare Alençon point that is wonderful as work; but you don’t dare to touch it. I’ve seen a fine jabot belonging to one of the Bonaparte princes, and worn by him at a royal marriage. You’ll sometimes see as good a border of medallions as that had, but not such a centre, lighter than blonde. It was scattered over with bees that had only alighted. Each wing was a little buttonhole-stitched loop with a tiny open star inside. As a jabot it could be worn; but as ruffles, you would have to keep your hands clasped together over the top of your head.”
The young man proposed after a while that they should go up and see the library, and Tacita somewhat shrinkingly consented.
“If Dylar should be there, I hope he will not believe that I followed him!” she thought.
He was not there. The large room was quiet and deserted. Shaded lamps burned on the green-covered tables, folds of green silk were drawn back from two lofty windows closed only with casements of wire gauze. Globes, stands of maps, movable book-rests, and cases of books of reference were all about. From the stairway and through the open windows the hum of conversation came softened to a hum of bees, the sound of viols from the dance-room was a quivering web of silver, and the feet of the dancers did not make the least tremor in the firmly set walls.