“What is his name?”
“I have forgotten—that is, I don’t believe I ever looked in the book to see.”
“Look now,” said Mrs. Howard.
But at that moment the Fraynes, their traveling companions, were announced, and the American author was forgotten in an animated discussion of the Italian winter they were going to have. The Fraynes—who consisted of a father and mother, a son who was in love with Fair, and two pretty daughters—had consented to be the guests of Mrs. Howard at the prince’s villa.
It was on the evening of a day two days later that a small party of sociable people were gathered in Mrs. Howard’s drawing-room, when their number was suddenly swelled by the appearance of Mr. Converse and a gentleman whom he introduced to Mrs. Howard and the company as Mr. Lorraine.
Fair had not yet come down. She had gone to her room after dinner, to change her dinner dress, that had been soiled with gravy by an awkward waiter.
Her maid, a trim English girl, gave her a dress of white clairette cloth, whose soft, lustrous folds fell about the slender, graceful form with statuesque grace. She wore a wide sash of soft, white silk, tied at the side in long, graceful loops. She was only medium height, but the costume made her look tall, and when Betty had fastened the pearls on the bare white arms and the bare throat, exposed by a square-necked bodice, she—the poor working girl so suddenly transplanted into an atmosphere of wealth and luxury—looked like a young princess, so graceful was her form, so beautiful her face, with its glorious, dark-brown eyes, whose dazzling light was all that was needed to relieve the severity of her pure white drapery.
“Mother likes me in white,” she said, with a gratified glance into the broad mirror, and, taking up her big bunch of white ostrich feathers, called by Dame Fashion a fan, she swept out, followed by the admiring remark from Betty:
“I like you in any color, miss. You look sweet in all.”
She went on, with a smile at the maid’s flattery, humming, as she walked, the low refrain of a love song—then the drawing-room door opened. She was on the threshold, a lovely, slender shape, all in white, with a vivid face lighted by starry eyes and crowned by shining red-gold hair; and a man had started up in amazement from Mrs. Howard’s side, and was staring at her with wondering eyes. She did not see him at first, for she was greeting several friends; but all at once she heard Converse say at her side: