"'Fine feathers make fine birds,'" she said to herself, bitterly, as she went down the stairs to the brilliantly lighted drawing-room, holding her small head high to hide the tremor at her heart.
She opened the door and entered. Mrs. Le Roy was there talking to a handsome young man. Beyond them she saw St. Leon with his dark head bent over a beautiful woman at the piano. Her white, jeweled hands flew swiftly over the pearl keys, and she was singing to him in a high, clear soprano voice:
"Oh, my lost love, and my own, own love,
And my love who loved me so!"
[CHAPTER XIX.]
Laurel drew back on the threshold, fearful of interrupting the singer, but Mrs. Le Roy had already perceived her, and came forward with considerable empressement to draw her into the room and introduce her.
"Miss Gordon, Count Fitz John," she said, and with a gasp as if some one had thrown cold water over her, the false Beatrix Gordon found herself bowing to a real, live French count.
Her trepidation passed away in a moment. The count was not at all imposing—a good-looking young fellow enough, but St. Leon Le Roy overtopped him by head and shoulders in size and manly beauty. Laurel sat down, shyly conscious of his palpable admiration, and when the song had come to an end she was presented to the singer.
A shimmer of azure silk, a gleam of jewels, a waft of overpowering perfume, and Laurel dared raise her eyes to the beautiful blonde face with its turquois blue eyes, its pink cheeks, and smiling lips, a halo of pale golden hair framing it all and lending an air of infantile innocence to its beauty. She looked very young, and she was smaller than Laurel—a wax doll, dainty and diminutive, and with a smile as sweet and inane. She did not look like a widow. It seemed strange to call her Mrs. Merivale.
The blue eyes, for all their infantile softness, gave Laurel a piercing take-you-in-at-a-glance look, as they touched each other's hands.