Greatheart | Page 9

"I should enjoy it very much."
Eustace came out of a somewhat sullen silence to throw a glance of half-reluctant approval towards his brother. He plainly regarded Scott's move as an achievement of some importance.
"Yes, go by all means!" he said. "Enjoy yourselves. That's all I ask."
Isabel's faint smile flitted across her tired face, but she said nothing.
Only as they reached and entered the hotel, she pressed Scott's hand for a moment in both her own.
CHAPTER IV
THE MAGICIAN
"Well, Dinah, my dear, are you ready?"
Rose de Vigne, very slim and graceful, with her beautiful hair mounted high above her white forehead and falling in a shower of golden ringlets behind after the style of a hundred years ago, stood on the threshold of Dinah's room, awaiting permission to enter. Her dress was of palest green satin brocade, a genuine Court dress of a century old. Her arms and neck gleamed with a snowy whiteness. She looked as if she had just stepped out of an ancient picture.
There came an impatient cry from within the room. "Oh, come in! Come in! I'm not nearly ready,--never shall be, I think. Where is Yvonne? Couldn't she spare me a single moment?"
The beautiful lady entered with a smile. She could afford to smile, being complete to the last detail and quite sure of taking the ballroom by storm. She found Dinah scurrying barefooted about the room with her hair in a loose bunch on her neck, her attire of the scantiest description, her expression one of wild desperation.
"I've lost my stockings. Where can they be? I know I had them this morning. Can Yvonne have taken them by mistake? She put everything ready for me,--or said she had."
The bed was littered with articles of clothing all flung together in hopeless confusion. Rose came forward. "Surely Yvonne didn't leave your things like this?" she said.
"No. I've been hunting through everything for the stockings. Where can they be? I shall have to go without them, that's all."
"My dear child, they can't be far away. You had better get on with your hair while I look for them. I am afraid you will not be able to count on any help from Yvonne to-night. She has only just finished dressing me, and has gone now to help Mother. You know what that means."
"Oh, goodness, yes!" said Dinah. "I wish I'd never gone in for this stupid fancy dress at all. I shall never be done."
Rose smiled in her indulgent way. She was always kind to Dinah. "Well, I can help you for a few minutes. I can't think how you come to be so late. I thought you came in long ago."
"Yes, but Billy wanted some buttons sewn on, and that hindered me." Dinah was dragging at her hair with impatient fingers. "What a swell you look, Rose! I'm sure no one will dare to ask you for any but square dances."
"Do you think so, dear?" said Rose, looking at herself complacently in the glass over Dinah's head.
Dinah made a sudden and hideous grimace. "Oh, drat my hair! I can't do anything with it. I believe I shall cut it all off, put on just a pinafore, and go as a piccaninny."
"That sounds a little vulgar," observed Rose. "There are your stockings under the bed. You must have dropped them under. I should think the more simply you do your hair the better if you are going to wear a coloured kerchief over it. You have natural ringlets in front, and that is the only part that will show."
"And they will hang down over my eyes," retorted Dinah, "unless I fasten them back with a comb, which I haven't got. Oh, don't stay, Rose! I know you are wanting to go, and you can't help me. I shall manage somehow."
"Are you quite sure?" said Rose turning again to survey herself.
"Quite--quite! I shall get on best alone. I'm in a bad temper too, and I want to use language--horrid language," said Dinah, tugging viciously at her dark hair.
Rose lowered her stately gaze and watched her for a moment. Then as Dinah's green eyes suddenly flashed resentful enquiry upon her she lightly touched the girl's flushed cheek, and turned away. "Poor little Dinah!" she said.
The door closed upon her graceful figure in its old-world, sweeping robe and Dinah whizzed round from the glass like a naughty fairy in a rage. "Rose de Vigne, I hate you!" she said aloud, and stamped her unshod foot upon the floor.
A period of uninterrupted misfortune followed this outburst. Everything went wrong. The costume which the French maid had so deftly fitted upon her that morning refused to be adjusted properly. The fastenings baffled her, and finally a hook at the back took firm hold of the lawn of her sleeve and maliciously refused to be