Every lady knows that fifteen minutes is a totally inadequate time in
which to make a ball toilet. It was at least half an hour before Irene,
with the assistance of the old housekeeper, had adorned herself with all
the finery at her command. Then she came flying down the steps in joyous
haste, and burst into the parlor with the refrain of a happy song upon
her girlish lips.
Old Faith followed more leisurely with a little white nubia and shawl
thrown over her arm.
"Ah! dearie me, dearie me," she sighed, as she waddled uncomfortably
down the wide stairs, "the child's too pretty and too willful, and Mr.
Brooke spoils her too much! Harm will come of it, I fear me. Poor Miss
Ellie, poor Irene!"
She laid the wrappings of her young mistress across the hat-rack in the
hall ready for her, and went back to her own domain and her own duties.
Meanwhile Irene had danced blithely into the parlor.
"Papa," she said, to the dark, masculine figure that stood at the window
with its back to her, "I'm ready now. Don't I look nice?"
The figure turned around from its contemplation of the moonlighted bay,
and looked at her. It was not Mr. Brooke at all. It was a younger,
handsomer man, whose brown eyes danced with irresistible mirth at her
pardonable vanity.
"Nice enough to eat," he answered coolly, and Irene gave a little,
startled shriek.
"Oh, dear, it isn't papa at all. Are you a bear, sir, that you talk of
eating me?" she inquired, demurely.
The stranger came forward into the light, and stood before her.
"Do I look like one?" he inquired, with a smile that lit up his face
indescribably.
Then, for a moment, they stared straight at each other, taking a mental
inventory of each other's appearance.
Ladies first--so we will try to give you some faint idea of how Irene
Brooke appeared in Guy Kenmore's eyes, though it is no easy task, for
beauty like hers, varying from light to shadow with
"Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change,"
defies all formal attempts at description.
She was a sixteen-year-old girl, with the graceful slenderness of that
exquisite age, and the warm, blonde beauty of the south. Her eyes were
deeply, darkly, beautifully blue, and appeared almost black beneath the
long, thick fringes of the beautiful, golden-brown lashes, and the
slender, arched brows of a darker hue. These arched brows, and the
faint, very faint, _retrousse_ inclination of the pretty little nose,
gave an air of piquancy and spirit to the young face that was hightened
by the proud curve of the short upper lip. The round, dimpled chin, and
soft cheeks were tinted with the soft pink of the sea shell. The waving,
rippling mass of glorious curls was of that warm, rich, golden hue the
old masters loved to paint. Put on such a fair young girl a dress of
soft white muslin and lace--just short enough to show the tiny,
high-arched feet in white kid slippers--girdle the slim waist with a
broad, blue ribbon, and fancy to yourself, reader mine, how sweet a
vision she appeared in the eyes of the stranger.
For him, he was tall, large, and graceful, with a certain air of
indolence and gracious ease, not to say laziness. He was decidedly
handsome, with a well-shaped head of closely-clipped brown hair, good
features, laughing brown eyes, and a drooping brown mustache. His summer
suit of soft, light-gray cloth was infinitely becoming.
But in much less time than it took for these cursory descriptions, Irene
has spoken:
"No, you do not look like a bear," she says, with charming frankness.
"You look like--see how good I am at guessing--like Bertha's city beau!
You are--_aren't_ you?"
Something in this childish frankness touches him with faint annoyance.
He chews the end of his long mustache after an old habit, and answers,
rather stiffly:
"My name is----"
"'Norval, from the Grampian hills,'" she quotes, with audacious
laughter.
"No,--it is plain Guy Kenmore," he answers, stifling his rising
vexation, and laughing with her.
"There, didn't I say so? Pray sit down, Mr. Kenmore," sweeping him a
mocking, ridiculous little courtesy. "I hope you will make yourself
quite at home at Bay View. I have a great liking for you, Mr. Kenmore."
He takes a chair with readiness, while she paces, a little restlessly,
up and down the floor.
"Thank you," he says, languidly. "May I inquire to what circumstances I
owe the honor of your regard?"
"You may," shooting him a swift, arch glance. "You're going to take Bert
off our hands, and I consider you in the light of my greatest
benefactor."
He laughs and colors at the cool speech of this strange girl.
"Indeed?" he says, with a peculiar accent on the word. "Why?"
"Oh, because," she pauses in her restless walk, and looks gravely at him
a moment with those dark blue eyes, "because Bert is so wretchedly
selfish she won't let me go anywhere until _she_ is married off. Now
to-night there was a ball. Papa had said I might go, but when he was
called unexpectedly away to the city what did Bert and mamma do but
forbid my going! After my dress and gloves and slippers were all bought,
too. Wasn't that too bad? And if you were me shouldn't you just love the
man that would take Bertha away?"
"A spoiled child, who hasn't the least business out of the school-room
yet," mentally decides the visitor. Aloud he says, curiously:
"Do you know you have the advantage of me? I haven't the least idea who
you are."
The blue eyes grow very large and round indeed. "Haven't you, really?
Did Bertha never tell you about me--her little sister, Irene?"
"Never. She must have forgotten your existence," he answered, with an
amused twinkle in his eyes.
"It is like her selfishness!" flashed Irene. "Never mind, I'll pay her
out for her crossness this evening. Only think, Mr. Kenmore, papa came
home just after they had gone, and said _he_ would take me to the ball.
I wonder if he is ready yet. It's quite time we were starting," she
adds, looking anxiously at the door.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Brooke. Your dazzling _entree_ put everything
out of my mind for a moment. Your father was in here about fifteen
minutes ago. He left a message for you."
"Why didn't you tell me, ah, why didn't you?" she demands, stamping her
little foot in impatient wrath.
"You talked so fast I quite forgot," he answers coolly.
"Well, are you going to tell me now?" she inquires, flashing her large
eyes at him superbly.
"Yes, if you will keep still long enough," he answers, provokingly, and
openly amused at the impatient anger, so like that of a sadly spoiled
child.
Irene folds her bare white arms over her heaving breast, and shuts her
red lips tightly over her busy little tongue; but her eyes look through
him with a glance that says plainer than words:
"Go on, now, I'm waiting."
With a stifled laugh, he obeys:
"Mr. Brooke said that he had been most unexpectedly called away on a
little matter of business, but that he would certainly return inside an
hour and take you to the ball."
He expected some expression of disappointment, but he was scarcely
prepared for the dire effect of his communication.
Irene ran precipitately to the darkest corner of the room, flung herself
down on a sofa, and dissolved into tears.
Feminine tears are an abomination to most men. Our hero is no exception
to the rule. He fidgets uneasily in his chair a moment, then rises and
goes over to the window, and listening to the low, sad murmur of the sea
tries to lose the sound of that disconsolate sobbing over there in the
dark corner.
"I never saw such a great, spoiled baby in my life," he says, vexedly,
to himself. "How childish, how silly! She's as pretty as a doll, and
that's all there is to her!"
But he cannot shut out easily the sound of her childish weeping. It
haunts and vexes him.
"Oh, I say, Miss Brooke," he says, going over to her at last, "I
wouldn't cry if I were in your place. Your father will be back
directly."
Irene, lifting her head, looks at him with tearful blue eyes shining
under the tangle of golden love-locks that half obscures her round,
white forehead.
"No, he will not," she answers, stifling her sobs. "When men go out on
business they never come back for hours and hours--_and hours_!"
dolefully. "It was too bad of papa to treat me so!"
"But he was _called_ away--don't you understand that? He wouldn't have
gone of himself," says Mr. Kenmore, doing valiant battle for his
fellow-man.
"I don't care. He shouldn't have gone after he'd promised me, and I was
all ready," Irene answers, obstinately and with a fresh sob.
"Little goosie!" the young man mutters between his teeth, and feeling a
strong desire to shake the unreasonable child.
But suddenly she springs up, dashing the tears from her eyes.
"I won't _wait_ for papa, so there!" she flashes out, determinedly. "All
the best dances will be over if we go so late. _You_ shall take me."
"_I'm_ not invited, you know," he says, blankly.
"No matter. They'll make you welcome, for Bert's sake. Any friend of
Miss Bertha's, you know, etc.," she says, with a little, malicious
laugh. "Yes, you shall go with me. It is a splendid idea. I wonder you
didn't suggest it yourself."
He smiles grimly.
"Indeed, Miss Brooke, I'm not at all in ball costume," he objects,
glancing down at his neat, light suit.
"All the better. I despise their ugly black coats," she replies, warmly.
"Do you know," with startling candor, "you are handsomer and
nicer-looking than any of the black-coated dandies that dawdle around
Ellie and Bert? Come, you _will_ go, just to please me, won't you?" she
implores, pathetically.
"No gentleman ever refuses a lady's request," he replies, with rather a
sulky air.
Irene scarcely notices his sulky tone. Her heart is set on this daring
escapade. Smarting under the sense of the injuries sustained at Bertha's
hands, she longs to avenge herself, and show her selfish sister that she
will go her way despite her objections. It is a child's spite, a child's
willfulness, and all the more obstinate for that reason.
"Oh, thank you," she says, brightly. "We shall have a charming time,
sha'n't we?"
"You may. I am not rapturous over the prospect," he replies,
laconically.
The willful girl regards him with sincere amazement. "Why, you must be
very stupid indeed, not to care for a ball," she observes, with all the
candor and freshness of an _enfant terrible_.
"You are very candid," he replies, feeling a strong desire to seize his
hat and leave the house.
"Now you are vexed with me. What have I done?" she inquires, fixing on
him the innocent gaze of her large, soft eyes. "I hope you haven't a bad
temper," she goes on, earnestly, almost confidingly, "for Bert isn't an
angel, I can assure you; and if you're both cross, won't you have a
lovely time when you marry."
Vexation at this aggravating little beauty almost gets the better of the
young man's politeness.
"Miss Brooke, if you weren't such a pretty child, I should like to shake
you soundly, and send you off to your little bed!" he exclaims.
She flushes crimson, flashes him an angry glance from her lovely eyes,
and curls her red lips into a decided and deliberate _moue_ at him.
Then, holding her pretty head high, she walks from the room.
"Has she taken me at my word?" he asks himself, rather blankly.
But no; Irene has only gone to the housekeeper's room, to leave a
message for her father that she has gone to the ball with Mr. Kenmore.
It does not enter her girlish mind that she is doing an improper thing,
or that her father would object to it.
Old Faith, wiser in this world's lore than her willful little mistress,
raises vehement objections.
"You mustn't do no such thing, Miss Irene, darling," she says. "Miss
Bertha will be downright outrageous about you coming there along of her
beau."
The pansy-blue eyes flash, the red lips pout mutinously.
"All the better," she answers, wickedly. "I want to make her mad! That's
why I'm going! I'm going to the ball with her beau; and I mean to keep
him all to myself, and to flirt with him outrageously, just to see how
Bert's black eyes will snap!"