CHAPTER XVIII
Clarice had barely gone a week when one evening Mrs. Le Roy came sailing into the dressing room, whither Laurel had gone to dress for dinner but was dreaming instead at the open window.
"My dear, we have company from New York," she said, rather abruptly.
Laurel started and turned a pale, frightened face toward the lady.
"New York," she faltered, tremblingly, with her heart on her lips.
A moment ago she had been careless, almost light-hearted, as she leaned from the window and watched the shadows of twilight falling on the river and the beautiful grounds. She had inhaled the flower-scented air with something like delight. She had been murmuring to herself some pretty lines of Jean Ingelow's:
"I leaned out of window, I smelt the white clover,
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;
Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover—
Hush, nightingale, hush! O, sweet nightingale, wait
Till I listen and hear
If a step draweth near,
For my love he is late."
The murmured words of the love song had died on the sweet lips now. They were white with fear as she turned to Mrs. Le Roy.
"My child, you need not look so startled," she laughed. "My guests will not eat you."
Then Laurel knew that she had almost betrayed herself. She rallied her sinking spirits with a great effort of will.
"I was rather startled. When you said New York I thought of so many whom I knew," she said, apologetically. "Is it anyone who—knows me, Mrs. Le Roy?" she asked, quivering with secret fear.
"No, my dear; but it is a lady who moves in the highest circles of fashionable society in New York—an old friend of mine and St. Leon's—a beautiful young widow she is now. She ran down quite informally upon us to bring a friend—a titled foreigner—to see our beautiful Eden." Laurel began to take heart again now. She listened with a smile, while the lady continued: "You will not take it amiss in your mother's old friend, Beatrix, if I suggest that you make your dinner toilet more elaborate than usual? You are always lovely, dear"—seeing the pale cheeks crimson suddenly—"in the simplest things you wear; but, to do honor to our guests and justice to your own rare beauty, I want you to look your loveliest tonight. I want to help you select a robe from among the new ones your mother sent—may I, dear?" with a coaxing smile.
"They do not fit—they are all too large, I think," faltered Laurel.
"I will send my maid. She can make the necessary alterations in a few minutes. I am waiting, dear, to help you select your robe, if you will allow me," said Mrs. Le Roy, with gentle persistence.
And Laurel had to yield.
They looked through the dresses and selected one of white nun's-veiling, satin, and Spanish lace—simple enough for a young girl, yet exquisitely elaborate and becoming.
"If you will wear this with the beautiful pearls your mother sent, you will be simply peerless," said Mrs. Le Roy.
Laurel could not confess that she had sent the pearls away. When Mrs. Le Roy was gone, and the maid was altering the dinner dress, she slipped out and gathered her hands full of deep scarlet jacqueminot roses.
"Will not these roses look well with the white dress?" she asked the stylish French maid, rather timidly.
"Superb!" pronounced Mademoiselle, with enthusiasm.
And when the dress was on, and the great clusters of scarlet roses gleamed against the white breast, and in the rippling curls of burnished gold, the maid could not repress an exclamation of delight. Nothing could have been lovelier than the dark-eyed, golden-haired girl in the white dress with the fragrant scarlet roses. Mademoiselle did not know that the girl hated herself with passionate contempt as she looked down at her beautiful, borrowed plumage.
"'Fine feathers make fine birds,'" she said to herself, bitterly, as she went down the stairs to the brilliantly lighted drawing room, holding her small head high to hide the tremor at her heart.
She opened the door and entered. Mrs. Le Roy was there talking to a handsome young man. Beyond them, she saw St. Leon with his dark head bent over a beautiful woman at the piano. Her white, jeweled hands flew swiftly over the pearl keys, and she was singing to him in a high, clear soprano voice:
"Oh, my lost love, and my own, own love,
And my love who loved me so!"
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