Miss Baker gathered all my shining hair into the loose knot that suits me, and put roses at my girdle and into the misty tulle about my shoulders. Ethel fitted on my slippers, and brought her fan and her lace handkerchief, and when I had smiled for one last time at the parted scarlet lips and the brilliant eyes that smiled back at me from the mirror, and had turned reluctantly from my dressing table, I was still joyous at remembrance of the light, the grace, the marvel of the vision I had seen reflected, that had seemed fairly to float in the dancing rose light of its own happiness.
Down in the hall the family were waiting, with John and Mr. Hynes; and, as I glided into sight on the stairway, Milly behind me, the Judge looked up at us, quoting with heavy playfulness:--
"She seizes hearts, not waiting for consent, Like sudden death that snatches unprepared.
"How many conquests will satisfy you to-night, fair Princesses? Milly, will two young men answer instead of one old one?" He had been exempted from serving on my bodyguard.
"Bake! Death! How can you," sputtered Aunt. "Come, girls, the carriage is waiting.
"Wish I could dance," whispered Ethel, reaching up to touch my flowers--a pathetic little figure poised on her best foot.
"Oh, I wish you could! I wish you were going," I replied hastily, bending to kiss the little creature, the better to hide my sudden consciousness of my bared shoulders.
All in the room were looking at me as if never before had they beheld my beauty. John's strained eyes seemed to plead with me for an answering glance of affection, and I knew that Ned--though I wasn't conscious of looking at him at all--was alternately white and red as I was myself. I felt his glance so confused and passionate and withal so impetuous that, as Aunt Marcia lifted my wrap and I went down to the carriage, my heart beat violently, and I sank back into my corner in a frightful, blissful maze of fear and ecstasy.
But even then I didn't know what had happened to me.
We had but a few blocks to go, and before I had recovered, a man in livery was opening the carriage door at the mouth of a canvas tunnel which seemed to dive under a great house that towered so far above the street as to look almost narrow. We passed through the tunnel, another man opened a door almost at the street level, and we advanced into a hall extending the entire width of the house, so brilliantly lighted and so spacious that I caught my breath at thought of our errand, seeing that the size of the place and its splendour so far exceeded what I had supposed.