“Don’t mention it,” said Mrs. Rayne—­“’tis bad enough when it comes.  Do you remember that Greek woman in Lothair, whose father was so fearfully rich that she seemed to be all crusted with precious stones?”

“Perfectly.”

“To dance and sing was all she lived for, and Lothair must needs bring in the skeleton, as you did, by reminding her of the dolorous time when she would neither dance nor sing.  You think she is crushed, to be sure, only Disraeli’s characters never are crushed, any more than himself.  ’Oh then,’ she says, ’we will be part of the audience, and other people will dance and sing for us.’  So beauty is always with us, though one person loses it.”

She gave a little shrug of her shoulders, which made her pearls and velvet shimmer in the moonlight.  She looked so white and cool and perfect, so apart from common clay, that all at once Queen Guinevere ceased to be my type of her, and I thought of “Lilith, first wife of Adam,” as we see her in Rossetti’s fanciful poem: 

    Not a drop of her blood was human,
    But she was made like a soft, sweet woman.

We all went to our rooms after this, and in each of ours hung a full-length swinging mirror; I had never seen one before, except in a picture-shop or in a hotel.

“Truly this is ’richness’!” I said, walking up and down and sideways from one to the other.

“I had no idea you had so much vanity,” said Frank, laughing at me, as he has done ever since he was born.

“Vanity! not a spark.  I am only seeing myself as others see me, for the first time.”

“I always had a glass like that in my room at home,” said my sister-in-law, with the least morsel of disdain in her tone.

“Had you?  Then you have lost a great deal by growing up to such things.  A first sensation at my age is delightful.”

Next day Rhoda and I were sitting with Mrs. Rayne in her dressing-room, with a great fan swinging overhead.  We all had books in our hands, but I found more charming reading in my hostess, whose fascinations hourly grew upon me.

She wore a long loose wrapper, clear blue in color, with little silver stars on it.  I don’t know how much of my admiration sprang from her perfect taste in dress.  Raiment has an extraordinary effect on the whole machinery of life.  Most people think too lightly of it.  Somebody says if Cleopatra’s nose had been a quarter of an inch shorter, the history of the world would have been utterly changed; but Antony might equally have been proof against a robe with high neck and tight sleeves.  Mrs. Rayne’s face always seemed to crown her costume like a rose out of green leaves, yet I cannot but think that if I had seen her first in a calico gown and sitting on a three-legged stool milking a cow, I should still have thought her a queen among women.

While I sat like a lotos-eater, forgetful of home and butter-making, a servant brought in a parcel and a note.  Mrs. Rayne tossed the note to me while she unfolded a roll of gray silk.