There was a dinner engagement the next day. When Elizabeth came down to the library in full dress, her husband sat moodily over the fire. He looked up as she entered, and gazed upon her with mournful admiration, for her beauty that day was something wonderful; unabated excitement had fired her eyes with a strange lustre, and lent a rich scarlet to cheeks, from which protracted suspense had of late drained all the color. Her dress, of rose colored silk, was misty with delicate lace that shaded her neck and arms like gossamer on white lilies. Star-like jewels flashed in the rich blackness of her hair and shone through the soft lace. The calm loveliness of former days was nothing to the splendor of her beauty now a feverish restlessness was upon her,--a glow of pain conquered by courage.
Mellen arose from his seat as his wife came in with the graceful rush of a cloud across the sky. He watched her approach gloomily. It seemed to him that her first impulse was to flee when she saw him sitting there, but if so the desire was quickly controlled, and she came up to the hearth, standing so near him that the folds of her dress brushed his arm.
"You are ready too," she said. "But it is impossible to say how long we shall have to wait for Elsie and Mrs. Harrington!"
He made no answer; she began clasping and unclasping her bracelets, but was watching him all the while from under her downcast lashes.
"Are you ill, Grantley?" she asked at length.
"You are so silent, and you sat there in such a dreary way, I feared something was the matter."
He made an effort to rouse himself and shake off the oppression--the heavy, heavy weight which had lain on his soul all day.
"I am only stupid," he replied, with an attempt at playfulness. "I have been forced to talk so incessantly to those people, that I have no ideas left."
"I am sure conversation with people in general doesn't consume one's ideas," she said, with a lightness which appeared forced like his own.
"How long does Mrs. Harrington stay?" he asked.
"Only till to-morrow. You don't like her, I fancy?"
"There is too much of her in every way," he said, peevishly; "she dresses too much, talks too much--she tires one."
"That is very cruel and ungrateful; the lady confided to me only a little while ago that she had a profound admiration for you, and was dying to get up a flirtation, if I did not mind."