Mr. Converse was very much amused at the turn affairs were taking.
“Lord Leigh will never forgive me for introducing Lorraine to her, for before this he had some hopes of making her Lady Leigh. Now he is in despair,” he said to Mrs. Howard, who smiled in her grave, still fashion, and answered:
“It is better as it is.”
Mr. Converse did not exactly understand her words. He had supposed that rich Americans always coveted titles for their handsome daughters, and it seemed to him that Fairfax Howard might easily aspire to a title, taking into consideration all her claims to beauty, birth, and wealth.
But it seemed plain enough that Mrs. Howard was not anxious over her daughter’s prospects of being my lady. He concluded that she preferred the aristocracy of genius. Bayard Lorraine’s first novel had placed him in a high rank in the literary world. She was a peculiar woman, and perhaps this pleased her best.
He was the more certain of this when he found out that Bayard Lorraine had an invitation to the Italian villa, of which he availed himself in less than two weeks after the Howards left London.
“Although,” the young man said to himself impatiently, “that simpleton, Gus Frayne, will be forever at her heels, and between him and his two giggling sisters one will have small chance with Fair.”
But he was mistaken. Augustus Frayne was so much disgusted when Lorraine made his appearance that he went off for a week on a friend’s yacht. As for Clara and Nettie Frayne, they had caught beaus of their own, so the young author had a better time than he could have hoped for with the lovely girl whose living charms had driven all his heroines out of his mind, so that he said to her one day in the beautiful flower garden, where they had been walking and gathering roses:
“I promised my publisher the first chapters of a new novel this week, but I have not written a line. You are accountable for this. You have driven everything else out of my head.”
She glanced up and met the beautiful blue eyes fixed on her with a look that set her pulses thrilling with fear and dread—dread of the time when he would speak and tell her in words what his eyes and actions continually declared. Alas! she dared not hear it. She was not free. The thought of Carl Bernicci forced itself upon her at times, almost driving her wild with despair.