“Once, on horseback, in the Bois. I was driving with his daughter, and she made him stop and speak to us. He was very fine-looking and gentlemanly, but I thought him proud and reserved, and I believe he had that name in Paris.”
Mrs. Rossiter had returned by this time, and entering the room, joined in the conversation, asking many questions of the Hethertons and their life in Paris and at Chateau des Fleurs, which Margery described as a perfect palace of beauty and art.
“Is Reinette pretty?” Grace asked, and Margery replied:
“You might not think her so when she is quiet and her features in repose, but when she is excited and animated, she sparkles, and glows, and flashes, and shines, as if there were a blaze of light encircling her, and then she is more beautiful than anything I ever looked upon, and she takes your breath away with her brilliancy and brightness.”
“You must have heard her speak often of her mother, my sister,” Mrs. Rossiter said, and Margery replied.
“Yes, many times; and at Chateau des Fleurs there was a lovely portrait of Mrs. Hetherton, taken in creamy white satin, with pearls on her neck and in her wavy hair. She must have been beautiful. There is a resemblance, I see, between you all and that portrait.”
“Do you know where that portrait is now?” Mrs. Rossiter asked; and Margery replied by telling her that, nearly six years before, Chateau des Fleurs was burned, with all there was in it, and she believed there was now no portrait of Mrs. Hetherton in the family.
It seemed so strange to the Rossiters that this foreigner should know so much more than themselves of the Hethertons, and for a long time they continued to ply her with questions concerning the new cousin whom they had never seen.
After a time Phil came sauntering into the room in his usual indolent, easy manner, and was presented to Margery, whose blue eyes scanned him curiously and questioningly. She had heard enough of his conversation to guess that he was already far gone in love with Queenie, and she was anxious to know what manner of man he was. Something in his manner and the expression of his face fascinated her strangely, while he, in turn, was equally drawn toward her; and when at last her work was done and she started for home, he exclaimed, under his breath, as he watched her going down the street:
“By Jove, Ethel, if I had never seen Queenie, I should say this dressmaker of yours was the loveliest woman I ever saw. Look at that figure, and the way she carries her head. I don’t wonder Queenie raves over her; such eyes, and hair, and complexion I never saw.”