"
She said quietly, "I don't mind," and turned with charming composure.
Every eye shifted to them, then obeyed decency or training; and the
slightest break in the gay tumult was closed up with chatter and
laughter.
"Plucky," said Sandon Craig to his fair neighbour; "but by what chance
did our unfortunate hostess do it?"
"She's usually doing it, isn't she? What occupies me," returned his
partner, "is how on earth Alixe could have thrown away that adorable man
for Jack Ruthven. Why, he is already trying to scramble into Rosamund
Fane's lap--the horrid little poodle!--always curled up on the edge of
your skirt!"
She stared at Mrs. Ruthven across the crystal reservoir brimming with
rose and ivory-tinted water-lilies.
"That girl is marked for destruction," she said slowly; "the gods have
done their work already."
But whatever Alixe had been, whatever she now was, she showed to her
little world only a pale brunette symmetry--a strange and changeless
lustre, varying as little as the moon's phases; and like that burnt-out
planet, reflecting any flame that flared until her clear, young beauty
seemed pulsating with the promise of hidden fire.
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