Suddenly there was a light sound of approach, and a tremulous, sweet voice close to his ear said simply:
"Good-afternoon, Mr. Roscoria."
Louis bounded on his chair as by galvanism, dropped his incumbrances, and spread forth a pair of eager arms, into which Rosetta, thinking this was all in the day's work, was actually preparing submissively to walk, when he saw that something was wrong.
"Ten thousand pardons!" he cried.
"Not at all," said Rosetta, smiling. "It is quite natural that you should feel deeply upon an occasion like this." And then she rubbed her small hands together bashfully, and waited with a beating heart for the beginning of his courtship.
"But I hope you see my mistake," urged Louis, still in smiling embarrassment. "I took you, in fact, for another lady."
"But; I am the other lady," said Rosetta.
"Ah!—Miss Villiers I was expecting."
"Precisely, I am Miss Villiers," said Rosetta, with firmness.
Roscoria looked the lady in the face. She was a very young looking creature, small, but rather strongly made, with a striking white face and great blue-black eye with a latent, passionate fire in the very depths of them. She had a resolute small chin and a decided mouth. Louis thought her, spite of her prettiness, the most tremendous interlocutor he had ever met. He turned absolutely faint with sudden horror, and grasped a chair, saying feebly: