Page:Held to Answer (1916).pdf/256

 the while a teasing little tune, followed Julie out through the portières, but in passing swung the curtains wide as an invitation to her caller's eyes to pursue her to where she stopped before a chiffonier which was turned obliquely across the corner of the large inner room.

Marien's shoulder was toward John, but the mirror beyond framed her face exquisitely, with its hood of flowing hair and the expansive whiteness of her bosom to the corsage, while the long dark lashes painted a feathery shadow upon her cheeks as her eyes looked downward to something before her on the chiffonier. For a moment she stood motionless, as if charmed by the sight on which their glance rested. Then, using both hands, she lifted the object, and instantly the mirror flashed to the watching man the picture of a swaying rope of diamonds. They seemed to him an aurora-borealis of jewels, sparkling more brilliantly than the light of Marien's eyes, as she held them before her face for an instant, and then, with a graceful movement which magnified the beauty of her rounded arms and the smoothly-chiseled column of her throat, threw back the close-lying strands of her hair to fasten the chain behind her neck.

For another second the mirror showed her patting her bosom complacently, as if her white fingers were loving the diamonds into the form of a perfect crescent, which, presently attained, she surveyed with evident satisfaction. Turning, she advanced toward her guest with hands at first uplifted and then clasped before her in an ecstasy of delight, while she laughed musically, like a child intoxicated by the joy of some long anticipated pleasure.

Upon a man whose love of beauty was as great as John Hampstead's, the effect was shrewdly calculated and the result all that heaven had intended.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed, leaping up to meet her as she advanced. "Splendid! Magnificent!"