"Pity him as much as you like, so that it is not the pity akin to love. I don't want you for a rival, Edie—besides I have other views for you."
"Indeed! The post of confidential maid when you are Lady Catheron?"
"Something better—the post of confidential sister. There! You needn't blush, I saw how the land lay from the first, and Charley isn't a bad fellow in spite of his laziness. The door bell again. Nothing but callers now until dark."
All Miss Stuart's masculine friends came dropping in successively, to institute the necessary inquiries as to the state of her health, after eight hours' steady dancing the preceding night. Edith's unsophisticated head ached with it all, and her tongue grew paralyzed with the platitudes of society. The gas was lit, and the dressing-bell ringing, before the last coat-tail disappeared.
As the young ladies, yawning drearily in each other's faces, turned to go up to their rooms, a servant entered, bearing two pasteboard boxes.
"With Sir Victor Catheron's compliments, Miss Beatrix, and brought by his man."
Each box was labelled with the owner's name. Trix opened hers with eager fingers. A lovely bouquet of white roses, calla lilies, and jasmine, lay within. Edith opened hers—another bouquet of white and scarlet camellias.
"For the opera," cried Trix, with sparkling eyes, "How good of him—how generous—how forgiving! After the papers and all! Sir Victor's a prince, or ought to be."
"Don't gush, Trixy," Edith said, "it grows tiresome. Why did he send you all white, I wonder? As emblematic of your spotless innocence and that sort of thing? And do I bear any affinity to 'La Dame aux Camellias?' I think you may still hope, Trix—if there be truth in the language of flowers."
Three hours later—fashionably late, of course—the Stuart party swept in state into their box. Mrs. Stuart, Miss Stuart Mr. Stuart, junior, and Miss Darrell. Miss Stuart dressed for some after "reception" in silvery blue silk, pearl ornaments in her hair, and a virginal white bouquet in her hand. Miss Darrell in the white muslin of last night, a scarlet opera cloak, and a bouquet of white and scarlet camellias. Charley lounging in the background, looking as usual, handsome of face, elegant of attire, and calmly and upliftedly unconscious of both.