Even as she spoke, she led the way from the ball-room into one of the book-lined embrasures of the long, now almost deserted, gallery, and Barbara, wondering, followed her.
Louise Marshall put on her prettiest manner. "I do hope you won't think me rude," she said, "but I am so very anxious to know if your beautiful gown came from Adolphe Peters? I do not know if you have noticed it, but of course I saw it at once,--there's a certain family likeness between my frock and yours! They say, you know, that Peters can only think out one really good original design every season--but then, when he has thought it out, how good it is!"
Mrs. Marshall spoke with a kind of sacred enthusiasm. To her, dress had always been, everything considered, the greatest and most absorbing interest of life.
After having received the word of assent she sought, she hurried on, "Of course, I felt quite sure of it! It is easy to see that he has followed out the same general idea--la ligne, as he calls it--in my frock as in yours. Several times this evening, I couldn't help thinking how awful it would have been if our two gowns had been exactly alike! I am probably going to India very soon"--Mrs. Marshall lowered her voice, for she had no wish that Berwick, who was standing a few paces off, his miserable eyes fixed on the two women while he talked to Septimus Daman, should thus learn the great news,--"but I shall be in Paris for a few days, and I have been wondering if you would mind my asking Peters to make me a gown exactly like yours, only of grey silk instead of white, and with mauve velvet bows and white tulle instead of green and black--that mauve," she added eagerly, "which is almost pale blue, while yet quite mourning! Well, would you mind my telling him that I have seen your dress?"
"No, of course not," said Barbara with some wonderment. "But I think that you should say that the gown in question was that made to the order of Madame Sampiero; he won't remember my name."
"Thanks so much! Madame Sampiero? Oh! yes, I know--I quite understand. Are you a niece of hers? Oh! only a god-daughter, that's a comfort, for then you need never be afraid of becoming like her,"--a look of very real fear came over the lovely, mindless face,--"I've often heard about her, and the awful state she's in! Isn't it a frightful thing? Do you think people are punished for the wicked things they do,--I mean, of course, in this life?"