Laurel drew back on the threshold, fearful of interrupting the singer,
but Mrs. Le Roy had already perceived her, and came forward with
considerable _empressement_ to draw her into the room and introduce her.
"Miss Gordon, Count Fitz John," she said, and with a gasp as if some
one had thrown cold water over her, the false Beatrix Gordon found
herself bowing to a real, live French count.
Her trepidation passed away in a moment. The count was not at all
imposing--a good-looking young fellow enough, but St. Leon Le Roy
overtopped him by head and shoulders in size and manly beauty. Laurel
sat down, shyly conscious of his palpable admiration, and when the song
had come to an end she was presented to the singer.
A shimmer of azure silk, a gleam of jewels, a waft of overpowering
perfume, and Laurel dared raise her eyes to the beautiful blonde face
with its turquois blue eyes, its pink cheeks, and smiling lips, a halo
of pale golden hair framing it all and lending an air of infantile
innocence to its beauty. She looked very young, and she was smaller
than Laurel--a wax doll, dainty and diminutive, and with a smile as
sweet and inane. She did not look like a widow. It seemed strange to
call her _Mrs._ Merivale.
The blue eyes, for all their infantile softness, gave Laurel a piercing
take-you-in-at-a-glance look, as they touched each other's hands.
"A dark-eyed blonde--labeled dangerous!" said Mrs. Merivale to herself
enviously, and feeling for a moment doubtful over the effect of her own
elaborate costume as compared with this pure white robe with its vivid
garniture of roses.
But, in a moment, her natural vanity reasserted itself. She concluded
to be gracious.
"I am so glad to know you, Miss Gordon. I have heard of you in New
York, although rumor did not credit you with half the charms I find you
in actual possession of," she twittered, sweetly. "Will you come to the
piano and play for us? I am so fond of music?"
"I do not play," Laurel answered, feeling the warm color flood her
cheeks under the lady's astonished gaze.
"Not play! Why, surely--" began Mrs. Merivale, but to Laurel's intense
relief dinner was announced, and she was spared the expression of the
lady's surprise at her ignorance.
Yet she looked at the pearl keys longingly as she swept past the grand
piano on the count's arm. She had a great passionate love for the
divine art of music, and a great grief filled her soul at the thought
that her hands had no power to wake the soul of harmony slumbering in
those silent keys.
"Poor papa! I wish that he had taught me more of music and less of
languages," she thought, regretfully.
Yet, when at dinner they talked in the French language out of
compliment to the polite count, she was glad that she could hold her
own among them. She felt rather than saw, St. Leon's surprise, and Mrs.
Merivale's dismay.
"So she can speak French like a native, although she cannot
play--curious!" said the latter to herself, with a feeling of vexation,
for she had started the ball of French conversation with a distinct
view to Miss Gordon's discomfiture.
Laurel had never seen Mr. Le Roy so brilliant as he was this evening.
It seemed that he had never exerted himself for her. He was affable,
courteous, fascinating to his visitors, especially so to the lady. He
had softly spoken words for her winning smiles that Laurel had never
dreamed could curve those sternly set lips. A pang of bitterness
pierced the sensitive heart of the lovely young impostor.
"He has never thought Beatrix Gordon worthy of his kind words and
smiles," she thought.
He did not think so now it seemed. He did not speak to her, seldom
looked at her. His words and looks were lavished on the fair, smiling
widow who gave herself up to the flirtation with eager, absorbing
interest. The count paid great attention to Laurel, and she tried to
look interested in his conversation, but she was glad when the dinner
was ended and the ladies passed from the room, leaving the gentlemen to
finish their wine.
Mrs. Merivale went to the low window and looked out upon the moonlit
balcony.
"How lovely it is!" she cried. "Will you come out, Mrs. Le Roy?--you
and Miss Gordon?"
"Beatrix may go--I am afraid of the night air," Mrs. Le Roy responded,
settling herself in an easy-chair.
"Will you come, Miss Gordon?" asked the fair widow. "It is too lovely a
night to remain indoors," she added, sentimentally.
Laurel went out to her, and Mrs. Merivale drew her ringed hand lovingly
through the girl's arm.
"Let us go out and gather some roses with the moonlight and dew upon
them. They will be so sweet," she said, winningly. "And, please, will
you call me Maud, and let me call you Beatrix? We are both too young to
be ceremonious with each other."
They went down into the graveled paths where the September moonlight
shone clear and white, and then Maud Merivale seemed to forget all
about the roses.
"_Ma chère_, I am dying to know how you like the count!" she cried.
"He is very nice, I suppose," said Laurel, vaguely, her thoughts
elsewhere.
"'Very nice'--oh, dear, what faint praise for my gallant adorer!"
laughed the lady. "Why, my dear Beatrix, all the girls in New York vote
him a love, a darling, an Adonis, and above all, a splendid catch! They
are all jealous of me! Any one of them could willingly cut my ears off
for having taken him captive!"
"Then you are to marry him?" said innocent Laurel, taking a vague
pleasure in the thought as suggested by the lady's words.
"_Cela depend._ I can marry him if I choose," laughed the lady. "You
must have observed how devoted he is."
Laurel had _not_ observed it; but she wisely said nothing.
Maud Merivale shook her golden frizzes in the moonlight.
"I shall not marry him. It is useless his breaking his heart over me,"
she said. "I am too true to my old love."
"Your dead husband," Laurel said, gently.
"Pshaw, Beatrix"--impatiently--"what are you talking of? Do you not
know that Mr. Merivale was an old man? It was not at all a love match:
it was because he was rich."
"Pardon," Laurel murmured, faintly, and she recalled to herself, as she
often did, Clarice's favorite song of "Dollars and Dimes."
"It is all right. The old man died soon, and left me a fortune," said
the young widow, heartlessly. "But as for loving him, or having any
sentimental _tendresse_ over his memory--pshaw, I am not such a little
simpleton as that, my dear! no one could expect it," plaintively.
"Beatrix," this with startling suddenness--"tell me what do you think
of your host--of St. Leon Le Roy?"