The dress was made of velvet, with some silver decoration across the front of the bodice, and it certainly appeared becoming. In it Cynthia Beckford looked very slim and young; fair-haired, but dark-eyed, naturally pale, but with a rapid flicker of colour; a person of frank, kind outlook, a simple and truthful sort of person, and yet with underlying depths of character or sensibility that proved astoundingly interesting to the few people who had studied her closely. Frenchmen would describe her beauty, such as it was, as belonging to the order that slowly troubles rather than quickly fascinates.
“But I’m not like the General,” said Mr. Ridsdale. “I admire that black dress, not any black dress.”
He said it with a perceptible insistence, quietly but obstinately; as if conscious of subtle values in his own taste, and unwilling that it should be confounded with the ordinary likes and dislikes of another person—even though that person were as worthy and respectable as his temporary employer.
Mr. Ridsdale was a good-looking man of thirty, tall and thin, of easy carriage and elegant manners. Boys, big and small, among whom he had passed the better part of his life, always looked up to him, and sometimes adored him, as a perfect type of school-trained manhood; and girls, too, were frequently subjugated by his charms. He was the sort of man who is not as a rule dreaded by other men as likely to prove a dangerous rival; and yet one might well suppose that in certain circumstances he would be dangerous—for instance, if paying slow and unhindered court to a foolish and otherwise neglected woman. The dark eyes, the smooth, silky voice, the insidious flattery of its softening tones, might all be effective in a protracted attack on feminine foolishness of a certain age.
“To-morrow,” he said, dreamily; “to-morrow—almost to-day,” and he sighed as he took a peach from the gold basket.
Yates, the butler, had put cigarettes and matches on the table, and was about to leave the room, when the outer bell rang shrilly and sharply.
“Who can that be?” said Ridsdale, looking up. “A visitor! Oh, do tell him to say you’re not at home.”
The butler paused, waiting for instructions.
“It can’t be a visitor,” said Cynthia Beckford. “Some tradesman’s messenger!”
“It may be old Lady Jane.”