Lady Louise sat at the piano, the soft light falling full on her pale, statuesque face, and making an aureole around her fair, shapely head.
Sir Everard Kingsland crossed over and stood beside her, and Lord and
Lady Carteret exchanged significant glances, and smiled.
It was a very desirable thing, indeed; they had brought Louise down for no other earthly reason; and Louise was playing her cards, and playing them well.
If Sir Everard had one taste stronger than another it was his taste for music, and Lady Louise held him spell-bound now. She played, and her fingers seemed inspired; she sung, and few non-professionals sung like that.
The chain of brittle glass that bound the captive beside her grew stronger. A wife who could bewitch the hours away with such music as this would be no undesirable possession for a blasé man. He stooped over her as she arose from the piano at last.
"Come out on the balcony," he said. "The night is lovely, and the good people yonder are altogether engrossed in their cards and their small-talk."
Without a word she stepped with him from the open French window out into the starlit night.
What is it that Byron says about solitude, and moonlight, and youth? A dangerous combination, truly; and so Sir Everard Kingsland found, standing side by side with this pale daughter of a hundred earls. But the irrevocable words were not destined to be spoken, for just then George Grosvenor, goaded to jealous desperation, stalked out through the open casement and joined them.
The midnight moon was sailing up to the zenith as Sir Everard rode home. His road was a lonely one through Brithlow Wood, which shortened his journey by over a mile; but his thoughts were pleasant ones, and he hummed, as he rode, the songs Lady Louise had sung.
"Confound that muff, Grosvenor!" he thought. "If it had not been for his impertinent intrusion, the matter would have been safely settled by this time—and settled pleasantly too, I take it; for, without being a conceited noodle, I really think Lady Louise will say yes. Ah! what's this?"