The world spoke well of her. "She was certainly a great coquette,"
people said, indulgently, but then she was so beautiful and so much
admired. She smiles as she reads the fashionable intelligence; there is
a paragraph describing her appearance at a ball given by one of the
queens of society. The paper speaks of her beauty, her magnificent dress
and costly jewels. She remembered all the homage, the sighs, the
whispered words, the honeyed compliments, smiled and thought how sweet
life was.
At that moment her maid entered. "My lady," she said. "Colonel Mostyn
would be so much obliged if you could see him. It is on important
business."
"Certainly. I will see him here," she replied. "What can he want with
me?" thought my lady. "He was very empresse last night; surely he is not
going to make love to me."
And the notion of a gray-haired lover piqued her and made her smile
again.
The colonel entered with the most courtly of bows, and she received him
graciously. He talked of the opera, of the ball, of the last new novel,
of the latest marriage on the tapis, and all the time Lady Lisle's
beautiful eyes were looking at him. "It was not for this you came," she
thought. At last the colonel spoke openly.
"I have come to ask of you a great favor, Lady Lisle," he said. "You
have perhaps heard of my young kinsman, Basil Carruthers?"
"The heir of Ulverston?" she said. "Certainly. He is one of the prizes
in the matrimonial market at present, colonel.
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