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.”