"Precisely why I am going," responds his vivacious wife. "Crowds always amuse me. Besides, we will see almost everybody who will be here for the season."
"Your countrymen, those rich Americans, will be there," Sir Harry insinuates, maliciously.
"I can stand that, too," Lady Clive retorts. "I am not to be daunted by trifles. Besides, I want Philip and Vera to see those people."
Lady Vera says not a word, but her heart beats high, and there is some little triumph mingled with her thoughts.
"Will Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter know me?" she asks herself. "Will they recognize the poor girl whom they injured and insulted so cruelly in the wealthy and honored Countess of Fairvale?"
She selects one of her loveliest dresses—a silvery white brocade, trimmed with a broidery and fringe of gleaming pearls. No jewels mar the rounded whiteness of her perfect arms and stately throat. The waving, golden hair is piled high upon her graceful head, with no ornament save a cluster of velvety white pansies.
"They say that my enemies' jewels are almost barbaric in their splendor. I will show them that I am lovely enough to leave my jewels at home," she tells herself, with some little girlish triumph.
[CHAPTER XX.]
At Darnley House on the night of Lady Spencer's ball, all the devices of art and the aid of two well-nigh distracted maids are called in to beautify Mrs. Leslie Noble for her debut in London fashionable society. Her small, pale, faded face is rejuvenated by rouge and powder, the hair-dresser furnishes a tower of straw-gold puffs to crown her own sparse locks, and add dignity and hight to her low stature. Her dress is a chef-d'œuvre of the Parisian man milliner—palest blue satin, with diaphanous, floating draperies of blue embroidered crape. A magnificent diamond necklace clasps her small throat. Bracelets of diamonds shine on her wrists, diamonds blaze in her hair, diamond clasps hold the azure draperies in place. From head to foot the small blonde sparkles with splendor, and her weak soul thrills with vanity. She is determined to create a sensation, and to have the incense of admiration poured at her shrine.