Dora Thorne [15]
Ronald was not in the house when the guests arrived; they came rather before the appointed time. His mother and Lady Charteris had gone to the library together, leaving Valentine in the drawing room alone. Ronald found her there. Opening the door, he saw the sleeve of a white dress; believing Lady Earle was there, he went carelessly into the room, then started in astonishment at the vision before him. Once in a century, perhaps, one sees a woman like Valentine Charteris; of the purest and loveliest Greek type, a calm, grand, magnificent blonde, with clear, straight brows, fair hair that shone like satin and lay in thick folds around her queenly head--tall and stately, with a finished ease and grace of manner that could only result from long and careful training. She rose when Ronald entered the room, and her beautiful eyes were lifted calmly to his face. Suddenly a rush of color dyed the white brow. Valentine remembered what Lady Earle had said of her son. She knew that both his mother and hers wished that she should be Ronald's wife.
"I beg your pardon," he said hastily, "I thought Lady Earle was here."
"She is in the library," said Valentine, with a smile that dazzled him.
He bowed and withdrew. This, then, was Valentine Charteris, the fine lady whose coming he had dreaded. She was very beautiful-- he had never seen a face like hers.
No thought of love, or of comparing this magnificent woman with simple, pretty Dora, ever entered his mind. But Ronald was a true artist, and one of no mean skill. He thought of that pure Grecian face as he would have thought of a beautiful picture or an exquisite statue. He never thought of the loving, sensitive woman's heart hidden under it.
It was not difficult when dinner was over to open the grand piano for Valentine, to fetch her music, and listen while she talked of operas he had never heard. It was pleasant to watch her as she sat in the evening gloaming, her superb beauty enhanced by the delicate evening dress of fine white lace; the shapely shoulders were polished and white, the exquisite arms rounded and clasped by a bracelet of pearls. She wore a rose in the bodice of her dress, and, as Ronald bent over the music she was showing him the sweet, subtle perfume came to him like a message from Dora.
Valentine Charteris had one charm even greater than her beauty. She talked well and gracefully--the play of her features, the movement of her lips, were something not to be forgotten; and her smile seemed to break like a sunbeam over her whole face--it was irresistible.
Poor Ronald stood by her, watching the expression that seemed to change with every word; listening to pretty polished language that was in itself a charm. The two mothers, looking on, and Lord Earle felt himself relieved from a heavy weight of care. Then Lady Earle asked Valentine to sing. She was quite free from all affectation.
"What kind of music do you prefer?" she asked, looking at Ronald.
"Simple old ballads," he replied, thinking of Dora, and how prettily she would sing them.
He started when the first note of Valentine's magnificent voice rang clear and sweet in the quiet gloaming. She sang some quaint old story of a knight who loved a maiden--loved and rode away, returning after long years to find a green grave. Ronald sat thinking of Dora. Ah, perhaps, had he forsaken her, the pretty dimpled face would have faded away! He felt pleased that he had been true. Then the music ceased.
"Is that what you like?" asked Valentine Charteris, "it is of the stronger sentimental school."
Simple, honest Ronald wondered if sentiment was a sin against etiquette, or why fashionable ladies generally spoke of it with a sneer.
"Do you laugh at sentiment?" he asked; and Valentine opened her fine eyes in wonder at the question. Lady Earle half overheard it, and smiled in great satisfaction. Matters must be going on well, she thought, if Ronald had already begun to speak of sentiment. She never thought that his heart and mind were with Dora while he spoke--pretty Dora, who