Sylvie pretended to be very anxious that day over the appearance her
sisters-in-law would make at the theater-party.
"Have you anything new?" she inquired. "Because I have invited several
young ladies and gentlemen, and ordered a supper here after the
performance at the theater. Of course, I want you all to do credit to
Bryant."
"We haven't a new thing," declared Edith, lugubriously. "You and Ida
will have to uphold the honor of the family by your elegant dressing,
for Maud and I will be sure to look like dowdies."
Mme. Sylvie did not seem to take the information much to heart. She
said carelessly:
"And Eliot's wife?"
"Oh, she will be a dowdy, too," replied roguish Edith.
So Sylvie and Ida could scarcely believe their eyes that evening when
Maud and Edith sallied in, the dark-haired Maud in gold-colored satin,
red roses, and rubies, and Edith in lustrous rose-color with white lace
flounces, while diamonds flashed from her throat and ears. Both girls
looked as handsome in their way as the bisque dolls who were splendid
in Parisian toilets and a profusion of gleaming jewels.
Sylvie stared in amaze and jealous displeasure.
"You told me you had nothing fit to wear!" she exclaimed, acrimoniously.
"I beg your pardon--nothing new," Edith replied, dimpling with
mischief. "These are our mother's old dresses made over."
"But diamonds and rubies--I am sure Bryant told me that all your
mother's jewels were sold to help pay your father's debts when he
failed!" Sylvie exclaimed, in wonderment and displeasure.
"So they were," Maud answered. "But, Sylvie, these do not belong to us.
We borrowed them from Una."
Ida Hayes broke in with inexpressible anger and spite:
"I thought Eliot was too poor to give such jewels to his wife."
Edith flashed her a glance of scorn.
"Fortunately poverty is no disgrace, Ida," she said. "But Eliot did not
give them to Una. They were bridal presents from her Southern friends."
"Dear me, Sylvie! and you said she was poor and a nobody!" Ida
exclaimed, insolently, turning around to her sister.
"Eliot said so," Sylvie answered; and forthwith there began a war
of words that was fortunately stopped by Bryant's entrance, and his
instant laying on the table of the heated subject of debate.
On his part he was glad to see his young sisters so charmingly dressed
and looking so lovely. He took the exciting fact of Una's jewels with
manly equanimity.
"There is no reason why Una should not have them," he said. "Her
adopted father, Pierre Carmontelle, is one of the richest men in the
South. If he and his friends gave her costly bridal presents, it was no
more than she had a right to expect."
Sylvie and Ida dared say no more, but their thoughts were full of
rancor, and the former muttered, _sotto voce_:
"I suppose she will come down presently covered with diamonds!"
Meanwhile, quite a different scene was transpiring in Una's room
upstairs. Fifteen minutes ago, as she had stood before her mirror,
putting the last touches to her sweet, simple toilet, there had come a
light, quick rap at her door.
"Maud or Edith," she thought, and called out, carelessly: "Come in!"
The door opened softly, and Eliot, her husband, appeared on the
threshold, looking marvelously handsome in full evening-dress, a
bouquet of pure white flowers in one hand, a long, white box in the
other.
When he saw lovely Una standing there in the soft, white robe, with the
pearls around her bare, white throat, and her round arms uncovered,
save by the dainty white gloves, her dark eyes shining with innocent
joy at her own fairness, he uttered a cry of delight:
"Oh, Una, how angelic you look! But," dubiously, "do I intrude?"
"No," she answered, with a blush and tremor; so Eliot shut the door and
came to her side.
"I have brought you some flowers and an opera-cloak," he said, pulling
it out of the box and dropping it on her shoulders. It was a dainty
white cashmere affair, not costly but very pretty, with a shining
fringe of pearl and silver beads. With the white dress and flowers, it
made Una look bride-like and lovely as a dream.
"Does it suit you? Will it be warm enough?" he asked, with shining
eyes; and Una held out her hands to him with sudden tears on her lashes.
"Oh, how good you are to me, who should expect so little from you! How
can I ever requite your kindness?" she murmured, tremulously.
He caught the white hands in his, and drew the dainty white figure into
the clasp of his yearning arms.
"Only love me, my darling!" he whispered, passionately, against her
crimson cheek. "That will pay all."
She lay still, trembling with rapture in the close pressure of his fond
arms. She felt his kisses falling softly, warmly on her face, her lips,
her hair. At last she drew herself from him, saying, with rapturous
wonder:
"You really want me to love you, Eliot?"
Half smiling at her wondering tone, he exclaimed:
"What a strange question, Una! Have I not been waiting almost a year
for your heart to wake from its childish sleep and respond to mine? And
how else could you requite aught I have done for you? Do you not know,
my darling, that love must be paid in its own coin?"
Doubting, wondering, she looked up into those glorious blue-gray orbs
now full of a radiant fire impossible to describe. Something of the
truth dawned on her bewildered soul. She cried out impulsively:
"Oh, Eliot, then you do love me? And I have been so wretched, so
afraid, so--"
No more, for he had caught her in his arms, crushing her passionately
to his breast, whispering that he had loved her always, always, and had
grown so weary, so impatient waiting to win her heart.
"There was no need to wait if you had not been so blind," answered
truthful Una. "For I loved you, Eliot, from the very first!"