"Indeed. I did not know that. Hazeldean is a new name in London. I heard his father was a plain country gentleman, of good fortune, but not that he was related to Mr. Egerton."
"Half-brother."
"Will Mr. Egerton pay the young gentleman's debts? He has no sons himself."
Randal.—"Mr. Egerton's fortune comes from his wife, from my family—from a Leslie, not from a Hazeldean."
Lady Frederick turned sharply, looked at Randal's countenance with more attention than she had yet vouchsafed to it, and tried to talk of the Leslies. Randal was very short there.
An hour afterward, Randal, who had not danced, was still in the refreshment room, but Lady Frederick had long quitted him. He was talking with some old Etonians who had recognized him, when there entered a lady of very remarkable appearance, and a murmur passed through the room as she appeared.
She might be three or four-and-twenty. She was dressed in black velvet, which contrasted with the alabaster whiteness of her throat and the clear paleness of her complexion, while it set off the diamonds with which she was profusely covered. Her hair was of the deepest jet, and worn simply braided. Her eyes, too, were dark and brilliant, her features regular and striking; but their expression, when in repose, was not prepossessing to such as love modesty and softness in the looks of woman. But when she spoke and smiled, there was so much spirit and vivacity in the countenance, so much fascination in the smile, that all which might before have marred the effect of her beauty, strangely and suddenly disappeared.
"Who is that very handsome woman?" asked Randal.
"An Italian—a Marchesa something," said one of the Etonians.
"Di Negra," suggested another who had been abroad; "she is a widow; her husband was of the Genoese family of Negra—a younger branch of it."