you, my lady," and he moved stiffly off in the direction of the foyer.
The Marchioness languidly selected a magazine from the litter of periodicals on the table. It was La Figaro, and of recent date. There were magazines from every capital in Europe on that long and time-worn table.
A warm, soft light filled the room, shed by antique lanthorns and wall-lamps that gave forth no cruel glare. Standing beside the table, the Marchioness was a remarkable picture. The slight, drooping figure of the woman with the dust-cloth and creaking knees had been transformed, like Cinderella, into a fairly regal creature attired in one of the most fetching costumes ever turned out by the rapacious Deborah, of the first floor front!
The foyer curtains parted, revealing the plump, venerable figure of a butler who would have done credit to the lordliest house in all England.
"Lady Jane Thorne," he announced, and a slim, radiant young person entered the room, and swiftly approached the smiling Marchioness.
CHAPTER II
OUT OF THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH
"AM I late?" she inquired, a trace of anxiety in her smiling blue eyes. She was clasping the hand of the taut little Marchioness, who looked up into the lovely face with the frankest admiration.
"I have only this instant finished dressing," said her hostess. "Moody informs me we're in for a blizzard. Is it so bad as all that?"
"What a perfectly heavenly frock!" cried Lady Jane Thorne, standing off to take in the effect. "Turn around, do. Exquisite! Dear me, I wish I could—but there! Wishing is a form of envy. We shouldn't wish for anything, Marchioness. If we didn't, don't you see how perfectly delighted we should be with what we have? Oh, yes,—it is a horrid night. The trolley-cars are blocked, the omnibuses are stalled, and walking is almost impossible. How good the fire looks!"
"Cheerful, isn't it? Now you must let me have my turn at wishing, my dear. If I could have my wish, you would be disporting yourself in the best that Deborah can turn out, and you would be worth millions to her as an advertisement. You've got style, figure, class, verve—everything. You carry your clothes as if you were made for them and not the other way round."
"This gown is so old I sometimes think I was made for it," said the girl gaily. "I can't remember when it was made for me."
Moody had drawn two chairs up to the fire.
"Rubbish!" said the Marchioness, sitting down. "Toast your toes, my dear."
Lady Jane's gown was far from modish. In these days of swift-changing fashions for women, it had become passé long before its usefulness or its beauty had passed. Any woman would have told you that it was a "season before last model," which would be so distantly removed from the present that its owner may be forgiven the justifiable invention concerning her memory.
But Lady Jane's figure was not old, nor passé, nor even a thing to be forgotten easily. She was straight, and slim, and sound of body and limb. That is to say, she stood well on her feet and suggested strength rather than fragility. Her neck and shoulders were smooth and white and firm; her arms shapely and capable, her hands long and slender and aristocratic. Her dark brown hair was abundant and wavy;—it had never experienced the baleful caress of a curling-iron. Her firm, red lips were of the smiling kind,—and she must have known that her teeth were white and strong and beautiful, for she smiled more often than not with parted lips. There was character, intelligence and breeding in her face.
She wore a simple black velvet gown, close-fitting,—please remember that it was of an antiquity not even surpassed, as things go, by the oldest rug in the apartment,—with a short train. She was fully a head taller than the Marchioness, which isn't saying much when you are informed that the latter was at least half-a-head shorter than a woman of medium height.
On the little finger of her right hand she wore a heavy seal ring of gold. If you had known her well enough to hold her hand—to the light, I mean,—you would have been able to decipher the markings of a crest, notwithstanding the fact that age had all but obliterated the lines.
Dinner was formal only in the manner in which it was served. Behind the chair of the Marchioness, Moody posed loftily when not otherwise employed. A critical observer would have taken note of the threadbare condition of his coat, especially at the elbows, and the somewhat snug way in which it adhered to him, fore and aft. Indeed, there was an ever-present peril in its snugness. He was painfully deliberate and detached.
From time to time, a second footman, addressed as McFaddan, paused back of Lady Jane. His chin was not quite so high in the air as Moody's; the higher he raised it the less it looked like a chin. McFaddan, you would remark, carried a great deal of weight above the hips. The ancient butler, Cricklewick, decanted the wine, lifted his right eyebrow for the benefit of Moody, the left in directing McFaddan, and cringed slightly with each trip upward of the dumb-waiter.
The Marchioness and Lady Jane were in a gay mood despite the studied solemnity of the three servants. As dinner has no connection with this narrative except to introduce an effect of opulence, we will hurry through with it and allow Moody and McFaddan to draw back the chairs on a signal transmitted by Cricklewick, and return to the drawing-room with the two ladies.
"A quarter of nine," said the Marchioness, peering at the French clock through her lorgnon. "I am quite sure the Princess will not venture out on such a night as this."
"She's really quite an awful pill," said Lady Jane calmly. "I for one sha'n't be broken-hearted if she doesn't venture."
"For heaven's sake, don't let Cricklewick hear you say such a thing," said the Marchioness in a furtive undertone.
"I've heard Cricklewick say even worse," retorted the girl. She lowered her voice to a confidential whisper. "No longer ago than yesterday he told me that she made him tired, or something of the sort."
"Poor Cricklewick! I fear he is losing ambition," mused the Marchioness. "An ideal butler but a most dreary creature the instant he attempts to be a human being. It isn't possible. McFaddan is quite human. That's why he is so fat. I am not sure that I ever told you, but he was quite a slim, puny lad when Cricklewick took him out of the stables and made a very decent footman out of him. That was a great many years ago, of course. Camelford left him a thousand pounds in his will. I have always believed it was hush money. McFaddan was a very wide-awake chap in those days." The Marchioness lowered one eye-lid slowly.
"And, by all reports, the Marquis of Camelford was very well worth watching," said Lady Jane.
"Hear the wind!" cried the Marchioness, with a little shiver. "How it shrieks!"
"We were speaking of the Marquis," said Lady Jane.
"But one may always fall back on the weather," said the Marchioness drily. "Even at its worst it is a pleasanter thing to discuss than Camelford. You can't get anything out of me, my dear. I was his next door neighbour for twenty years, and I don't believe in talking about one's neighbour."
Lady Jane stared for a moment. "But—how quaint you
