The girls were still lingering upon the staircase, listening to the soothing murmurs of Mrs. Lowton and the outcries of the invalid, gradually sinking into whimpers, when a loud knocking announced the arrival of a visitor of importance, and James presently came up with a petition from Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert for a few words with the Lady Prudence, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour.
"The lateness of the hour! Why, 'tis barely nine o'clock," cried Prue, blushing and sparkling with delight. "Go, James, and tell Sir Geoffrey I will be with him immediately. Come, Peggie."
And away she flew to reassure herself, by a glance at her mirror, that her scene with Lady Drumloch had not dishevelled her luxuriant curls, and to disguise the shabbiness of her gown with a lace kerchief and a knot of ribbon.
"A plague on all milliners and tailors," she pouted; "to think that I should have to receive my betrothed after three weeks' separation, looking more like my lady's scullery-maid than her granddaughter."
"Sir Geoffrey will never know what you wear, if you sit away from the lamp, where he can just see your eyes by the firelight," counseled Margaret. "No man cares to look at your gown, who can see your face."
"Flatterer!" cried Prue; but she kissed her cousin on both cheeks, and certainly gave no sign of doubting her veracity.
Sir Geoffrey was impatiently waiting in the dim drawing-room, where James had reluctantly lighted a pair of candles in an ancient silver sconce that Benvenuto Cellini himself may have chiseled. The two ladies swept the most ceremonious of curtseys, but at the sight of Prue's radiant loveliness, her visitor dropped on one knee, and taking both her little hands in his, kissed first one and then the other with unaffected ardor.
"How have I lived all these centuries?" he cried—"they can not have been merely weeks—without my Goddess, my Star—" and so on, after the highflown fashion of the days of Pope and Dryden. To which Prue was well accustomed, and did not find any too fantastic for her highly cultivated vanity.
"Rise, Sir Geoffrey," she said very graciously, and when he obeyed, offered him her glowing cheek, upon which, one may be sure, he made haste to imprint more than one or two impassioned kisses. Then Margaret, who at first kept discreetly in the background, came forward and presented her hand, contenting herself with a salute of a more perfunctory nature.
"When did you return to town, Sir Geoffrey?" Prue inquired.