Although it was half an hour since the conclusion of the last meal of the day, this room was unoccupied—at least at first glance. Then in its extreme end appeared a pleasing tableau in the blazing firelight—a tableau that in the fifty feet of polished perspective might have been mistaken for an oil-painting by a master-hand for mural decoration.
A divan of turquoise-blue damask had been rolled up to the chimney-piece and upon the soft white fur of an immense cloak thrown over one end of it, reclined a woman. Her white draperies were scarcely distinguishable against the fur, in which she sank luxuriously. Closer inspection would have remarked the rise and fall of her bosom but partially concealed—one might say almost entirely revealed—by the transparent material of her bodice; for she was attired a la Grecque, in an Indian muslin embroidered in silver lama, whose diaphanous skirt clung to her lower limbs as the wet sheet clings to the sculptor’s model.
The short puffed sleeves of her Josephine waist left her beautiful arms entirely naked save for the cameo medallion in white and rose-color, set in thin gold, at her wrists. Her figure so openly displayed was of sufficient elegance to excuse the frankness, but beautiful as were its proportions, attentive admiration would have been first bestowed upon her face, oval, ivory-tinted, under a superb quantity of pale red hair confined by a classic fillet of gold with a pendant of pearl upon her white forehead. Her elongated eyes, half closed in reverie, were apparently dark grey, with heavy lids whose lashes cast crescented shadows upon her cheeks.
Her full, red lips were slightly open, disclosing the even edges of milkwhite teeth, giving a luxurious, sensuous and somewhat cruel expression to her vivid countenance. Her languid head leaned upon one fair hand, whose long fingers were embedded in the thick mass of hair, the elbow supported by the curved shoulder of the divan. The other hand, dazzling with jewels, held in her lap an ivory-handled fan of flamingo feathers, rose-colored like her cameos and the knot of velvet ribbon at the depression between the soft elevations of her bosom.
Occasionally she surveyed the foot resting upon the blue damasked hassock; it was slim and arched, encased in a heelless white satin slip-shoe which barely covered the toes and was strapped about the ankle and visibly halfway up the leg by narrow white ribbons. The flesh-colored stockings met skin-tight silk under-garments of the same hue, conveying the impression of a body clad in a single dress, according to the fashion of the day for those whose perfection of figure permitted or excused it.
When the contemplation of the foot lost interest, the young woman—for she was hardly more than twenty-three—would draw from its hiding-place behind the rose-colored velvet loveknot a medallion set in brilliants attached to a slender gold chain of exquisite workmanship, whose fine thread fell upon her delicate shoulders from the necklace of spinel rubies which embraced her swan’s throat like linked pomegranate seeds or tiny drops of transparent blood.
An East Indian screen with numerous painted silk panels framed in ebony, stood in fantastic zigzags behind the divan, and the thick, blue-flowered damask curtains of the shuttered casements had been carefully drawn; nevertheless she shivered now and then and pulled up about her arms her yellow scarf of Canton crepe heavy with silk embroidery and fringe.
Wax candelabra in silver-gilt were reflected from the paneled mirrors and in the shining floor of polished rosewood, pervading the apartment with a light at once soft and lustrous.
Just above the mantelpiece, dominating the entire mise en scène, hung an oil painting, a portrait by Copley of the master and mistress of the mansion. The lady in becoming a Grantham could not forget that she had been a Vizard, and therefore closely related to the last of the Royal Governors of the Province.
The two figures were represented seated at a table engaged in a game of chess, the position of the pieces indicating a decided “check” on the part of the lady, whose haughty countenance appeared somewhat flushed with anticipated victory.