As the two men separated, Colin clenched his fists.
None too soon for Kathleen’s eager ambition had arrived the day of her appearance before an audience that would make or mar her hope of establishing herself as a performer, at semi-private concerts.
Punctual to the hour appointed by her patroness, the rusty cab, that in the eyes of the Blairs’ maid servant had conferred style upon their dwelling by pulling up in front of it, had deposited at the Beaumoris portal the young violinist and her mother.
In a wide hall, beneath orange trees ranged against tapestries of great age and fabulous value, they were received by two automata in claret and silver livery, whose mission on gala days it was to forever point out to guests the way toward distant cloak-rooms. The fiddle-case, no less than the hesitating manner of their entry, betraying our ladies to these potentates, they were hurried with scant courtesy upstairs, and bidden to wait in the morning-room until the pleasure of the mistress concerning them should be ascertained.
Kathleen saw the flush on her mother’s cheek at the moment when Molly caught the gleam in her child’s eye.
“Don’t mind, darling.”
“It’s a mistake, of course, dearest,” were spoken simultaneously. Thereupon the two grasped hands for a little reassuring squeeze, and looked around them comforted.
Neither had seen anything comparable to this boudoir, its fantastic furnishings gathered from every quarter of the globe, its floor strewn with skins and rugs soft as velvet, its litter of costly curios, and cushions heaped upon gilded couches. Kathleen, getting up to pace the room with a free, impatient step, paused oftenest before the clusters of long-stemmed roses that hung their royal heads over the rim of tall crystal vases, and the gems of pictures upon the satin background of the walls. Then standing amazed by the writing-table, with its fittings and toys of beaten silver, she whispered, merrily: