The brown brilliant eyes look up at him frankly. She is at her ease at last, and Sir Victor thinks again, what beautiful eyes, brown eyes are. For a dark young person, she is really the most attractive young person he has ever met.
"Cheshire," he repeats with a smile, "how well you know my birthplace. No, not my birthplace exactly, for I was born in London. I'm a cockney, Miss Darrell. Before you all go abroad, you are to come and spend a week or two down in my sunny Cheshire; both my aunt and I insist upon it. You don't know how many kindnesses—how many pleasant days and nights we owe to our friends, the Stuarts. It shall be our endeavor when we reach England to repay them in kind. May I ask, Miss Darrell, if you have met my aunt?"
"No," Edith replies, fluttering a little again. "I have not even seen
Lady Helena as yet."
"Then allow me the pleasure of making you acquainted. I think you will like her. I am very sure she will like you."
The color deepens on Edith's dark cheek; she arises and takes his proffered arm. How gracefully deferential and courteous he is. It is all custom, no doubt, and means nothing, but it is wonderfully pleasant and flattering. For the moment it seems as though he were conscious of no other young lady in the scheme of creation than Miss Darrell—a flirting way a few young men cultivate.
They walk slowly down the long brilliant rooms, and many eyes turn and look after them. Every one knows the extremely blonde young baronet—the dark damsel on his arm is as yet a stranger to most of them. "Dused pretty girl, you know," is the unanimous verdict of masculine New York; "who is she?" "Who is that young lady in the dowdy white muslin and old fashioned corals?" asks feminine New York, and both stare as they receive the same whispered reply: "A poor relation—a country cousin, or something of the sort, going to Europe with them as companion to Beatrix."
Edith sees the looks, and the color deepens to carnation in her face. Her brown eyes gleam, she lifts her head with haughty grace, and flashes back almost defiance at these insolent starers. She feels what it is they are saying of her, and Sir Victor's high bred courtesy and deference, go to the very depths of her heart by contrast. She likes him; he interests her already; there is something in his face, she can hardly tell what,—a sort of sombre shadow that underlies all his smiling society manner. In repose and solitude, the prevailing expression of that face will be melancholy, and yet why? Surely at three-and-twenty, life can have shown nothing but her sunshine and roses, to this curled darling of fortune.
A stout, elderly lady, in gray moire and chantilly lace, sits on a sort of a throne of honor, beside Mrs. Stuart, and a foreign gentleman, from Washington, all ribbons and orders. To this stout, elderly lady, as Lady Helena Powyss, his aunt, Sir Victor presents Miss Darrell.
The kindly eyes of the English lady turn upon the dark, handsome face of the American girl; the pleasant voice says a few pleasant words. Miss Darrell bows gracefully, lingers a few moments, is presented to the ribbon-and-starred foreigner, and learns he is Russian Ambassador at Washington. Then the music of their dance strikes up, both smilingly make their adieux, and hasten to the ball-room.
Up and down the long waxed room, in and out with gorgeous young New York, in all the hues of the rainbow, the air heavy with perfume, the matchless Gounod waltz music crashing over all, on the arm of a baronet—worth, how much did Trixy say? thirty or forty thousand a year?—around her slim white muslin waist Edith is in her dream still—she does not want to wake—Trixy whirls by, flushed and breathless, and nods laughingly as she disappears. Charley, looking calm and languid even in the dance, flits past, clasping gay little Mrs. Featherbrain, and gives her a patronizing nod. And Edith's thought is—"If this could only go on forever!" But the golden moments of life fly—the leaden ones only lag—we all know that to our cost. The waltz ends.