[CHAPTER I.]
A dusky, piquante face, arch, sparkling, bright, as only brunette faces can be, dark, waving hair, and pansy-dark eyes with golden lights in their soft depth, delicious lips, tinted with the velvety crimson of the rose, a slight girlish figure, unformed as yet, but with a willowy grace all its own—Reine Langton.
She comes singing along the graveled path between the trim borders of bright verbenas, velvety pansies and fragrant pinks, swinging her large straw hat by its scarlet ribbons. The golden light of the summer day falls on the uncovered head, and on the fair, low forehead with its silky rings of clustering hair, and its slender, straight, black brows. She sings shrilly, but sweetly
"'Love not—love not, ye hapless sons of clay;
Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers;
Things that were made to fade and fall away
When they have blossomed but a few short hours;
Love not—love not.'"
The handsome, blonde face of a young man lifts itself from the reclining depths of a hammock-chair, swung under a wide-spreading tree; as she draws nearer, he breaks out with careless raillery:
"Pray forbear, Miss Langton! your shrill soprano has frightened me from a charming dream. I do not believe your match could be found for keeping one's nerves continually on edge."
"Men have no business with nerves," she retorts, coolly. "For shame, Mr. Vane Charteris. Get out of that hammock and stir yourself. I can't abide a lazy man."
He looks at her with sleepy, half-shut eyes that mirror the deep, beautiful blue of the sky overhead.
"Fortunately you do not have to abide me," he says, bruskly. "After to-morrow I shall forever be out of reach of your shrill voice and scolding tongue!"