To the surprise of both Mrs. Chalmers and Jessica, Carlita came into the room before the arrival of their expected guests that same evening.
She was gowned in black, but it was black chiffon; the silk lining of the waist cut low, her beautiful throat gleaming like marble under its soft covering. Her hair was parted, and fell in great waves down to her ear, from which it was drawn back to the nape of the neck, a few small curls drooping upon the olive brow. The daintiest of bloom stained her cheeks and lips, and there was an added light in the dusky eyes that made her almost thrilling in her strange beauty.
For the first time Jessica looked upon her with a little start and slight contraction of the brows. She had said quite truly that she had never been jealous of the beauty of any woman, and yet she was conscious of a distinctly unpleasant sensation as her mother's ward stood before her. She had said that Carlita lacked style, and yet in that moment she realized that there was something better than mere style in the young girl's make-up; there was an individuality, a charm, a wonderful grace, as if some exquisite conceit of one of the old masters had suddenly stepped from its frame and stood there in flesh and blood reality.
Jessica bit her lip. For the first time in her recollection she found herself disconcerted. She could find nothing to say. She wanted to invent some excuse to banish Carlita from the drawing-room, but could make none. And before she could recover her accustomed aplomb, the little maid Marie announced Mr. Pierrepont and Mr. Winthrop.
Carlita stepped aside and looked from one to the other of the two men.
She observed the magnificent proportions of the one whom she had met in the afternoon, enhanced by a dress-suit which fitted him singularly well, noted the slow grace of his perfect manner, and then turned to the other one.
He was tall also, and slight almost to emaciation. His eyes were of Saxon blue—honest eyes that were like those of a frank, generous boy who loves life, loves the world, loves happiness, loves danger even, but has never learned to dissemble.
He showed traces, even the presence, of a terrible illness; but there was something that caught and held her interest and her sympathy in the smile that he bent upon Carlita when Mrs. Chalmers had performed the introduction.
"It is so delightful to meet you, Miss de Barryos," he said, genially. "Leith told me that he had forestalled me this afternoon, and also that you were something of a Mexican. I should have known it even if he hadn't said so, and the inclination to call you senorita was almost uncontrollable. I have been in Mexico frequently, and—oh, love it!"