Evelyn had left herself entirely to her sister’s mercies, and the result was such that even Felicia Headfort’s melancholy eyes lighted up with pleasure at the sight of her cousin’s wife, whose lovely fairness was shown to great advantage by the pale, blush-rose tint of her dress. Her naturally beautiful hair owed much also to Philippa’s careful manipulation, all the more deft and clever in that there was not the slightest appearance of studied art about it—the little bow of pink velvet to match her dress really looking as if it had flown down of itself to nestle among the wavy coils. Evelyn’s stock of jewellery was limited; for this important occasion she wore the one good ornament which her Duke had, with much unsuspected self-denial, gathered together enough money to procure for her—a string of fair-sized pearls.
“You will bewitch my father, I am sure.”
“My dear,” said Miss Headfort, impulsively, “your dress is quite charming, and you do not look the least tired now. You will quite bewitch my father, I am sure.” Evelyn smiled.
“How nice you look yourself,” she said to her cousin, gently stroking the sleeve of Felicia’s soft, grey velvet bodice, for though far more than the orthodox term of black attire for the loss of their two brothers had passed, the Headfort sisters had not yet—if indeed they ever would discard it—worn anything but half-mourning.
Miss Headfort looked very handsome in her velvet and rich old lace; handsomer than Philippa had expected from her former glimpse of her. And the two figures together harmonised from their very dissimilarity. The sight was gratifying to the girl’s sensitive perceptions of beauty; but as she stood there in the background in her plain, black dress and disfiguring spectacles, unnoticed, and in a sense unthought of, even by her sister, it would be untrue to human nature, to girl nature especially, to say that no shadow of mortification passed over her as she again realised, and this time more fully than hitherto, the abnormal position she had placed herself in.
But almost simultaneously her vigorous resolution of character, greatly assisted in the present case by her vivid sense of humour, reasserted itself. There was a considerable amount of triumph, too, in the success of her plan.
“I do believe,” she thought, “that I shall be able to carry it through perfectly to the—no, I won’t say ‘bitter end’—but till the curtain drops for ever, I hope, for I am quite sure I shall have had enough of my rôle by then, as ‘Phillis Ray, lady’s-maid.’ Though but for her, goodness only knows what Mrs Marmaduke Headfort would have been looking like at the present moment—as to her headgear above all!”
A glance of affectionate gratitude from Evelyn as she followed her conductress out of the room, added to Philippa’s self-congratulation. Still more so, a word or two from Miss Headfort which caught her ears as, suddenly discovering that her sister’s fan was still reposing on the dressing-table, she ran after her with it, a few steps down the passage—“very clever maid yours seems to be; she must—” But the rest of the sentence was deferred, as Evelyn turned to take the fan held out to her.