no secret of his infatuation. And he was no mean rival, with his dark good looks, his pleasant and perfect manner.
When he came down, he stood for a moment outside the library door looking in. The gay group around the fire had the effect of a painting. Hildegarde, with her hair done in that new and beautiful fashion of braids, sat in a high-backed chair of stamped green velvet. Her white tea-gown was edged with soft feather trimming, and she wore silver slippers.
Crispin remembered her as she had walked beside him in her mother's black cape. He had thought her lovely then, but this was a different loveliness—the loveliness of Cinderella after the wand was waved, the loveliness which money makes possible, the loveliness which belonged to the portrait above the fireplace, to the pomegranate bloom of the lacquered cabinet, to the crystal cat and her sleep of a thousand years. It was the loveliness of enchantment. This Hildegarde was a dream-woman. Tomorrow he would wake and find her walking beside him in her stout little shoes and red sweater.
When he went in, Sally claimed him. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was gold. She was extremely pretty, Crispin decided. But not with Hildegarde's loveliness.
He was quite content to talk to Sally because he could feast his eyes on Hildegarde, and willing to let Meriweather talk to Hildegarde because when he was near his love, he felt that nothing could ever come between them.
He had a few moments alone with her before she
