Every innocent seeming word had a barbed point for the heart of the proud mother. Violet talked to her some time about Jaquelina.
She appeared very frank and open, but she made Mrs. Valchester understand very plainly by skillful innuendoes that she was by no means on terms of intimate association with her son's betrothed, and that their acquaintance had simply consisted of a series of kindly, patronizing acts on her part.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
Ronald Valchester, whiling away the sunny afternoon by the side of his betrothed, little dreamed with what subtle art Violet Earle was implanting a prejudice in his mother's mind against his darling.
He was fastidious, and harder to please than most men, but even his exacting taste could find few things in Jaquelina that he would have cared to change.
She was naturally refined, graceful and polished, and her beauty was so remarkable that even in her simple print dress and white ruffled apron, Ronald thought her lovelier than any satin and jewel-bedecked belle he had ever met in society.
"Lina, sing to me," he said, when the sunset glow began to crimson the west. "I have longed to hear you sing so often while I was away from you."
She smiled, and turned her face to watch the setting sun as she began to sing.
Ronald thought there was nothing on earth so fair as that face, with the parted crimson lips, and the wonderful light that always came upon it when she sang.