After dinner Madame de Beaufoy was well enough to sit up and play at cards in her dressing-room, her two daughters bearing her company. Adeline was downstairs alone, privately expecting Mr. St. John; now, standing before a mirror, hastily passing a finger over the braids of her luxuriant hair: now glancing, with conscious vanity, at the rich crimson which expectancy called to her cheeks; now, stealing to the colonnade, and looking and listening.
Suddenly the room-door opened, and Adeline stepped in from the colonnade, her heart beating wildly. But it was only her mother: who began to rummage amongst the silks and worsteds of an ivory basket. "Only her mother!" How full of ingratitude is the heart to those who have cherished us from infancy, when this all-potent passion for a stranger takes root in it!
"Adeline, your aunt has mislaid her green floss-silk. Will you look in my work-box?"
Adeline unlocked the box, found the silk, and handed it to her mother. Again the door opened, and this time her pulse did not quicken in vain. It was Mr. St. John.
"I am glad to see Madame de Beaufoy is better," he observed as he came in. "She nodded to me from her dressing-room."
"Oh yes, thank you. Ah, here's news at last!" exclaimed Madame de Castella, as the old Spanish servant, Silva, entered with a letter. And with a "pardon" to Mr. St. John, she broke the seal. She was very French sometimes.
"M. de Castella has been detained," she explained, skimming the contents: "he will not be here for a week. The truth is, Mr. St. John, he always finds Beaufoy painfully triste, and makes excuses for remaining away from it. Adeline, here is a message for you."
Adeline glanced up half frightened. These instincts are rarely wrong.
"Your papa desires his love to you, and---- You are quite a family friend now, Mr. St. John," broke off Madame de Castella, "so I do not hesitate to speak before you. I dare say the subject is as well known to you as it is to ourselves: you are like a son of the house, a brother to Adeline."
Mr. St. John bowed.