She lifted her fan from the table, and waved it lightly to and fro.  “I go in rose color,” she said. “’Tis the gown I wore at Lady Rich’s rout.  I dare say you do not remember it?  But my Lord of Peterborough said”—­She broke off, and smiled to her fan.

Her voice was sweet and slightly drawling.  The languid turn of the wrist, the easy grace of attitude, the beauty of bared neck and tinted face, of lowered lids and slow, faint smile,—­oh, she was genuine fine lady, if she was not quite Evelyn!  A breeze blowing through the open windows stirred their gay hangings of flowered cotton; the black girl sat in a corner and sewed; the supple fingers of the hairdresser went in and out of the heavy hair; roses in a deep blue bowl made the room smell like a garden.  Haward sighed, so pleasant was it to sit quietly in this cool chamber, after the glare and wavering of the world without.  “My Lord of Peterborough is magnificent at compliments,” he said kindly, “but ’twould be a jeweled speech indeed that outdid your deserving, Evelyn.  Come, now, wear the blue!  I will find you white roses; you shall wear them for a breast knot, and in the minuet return me one again.”

Evelyn waved her fan.  “I dance the minuet with Mr. Lee.”  Her tone was still sweetly languid, her manner most indifferent.  The thick and glossy tress that, drawn forward, was to ripple over white neck and bosom was too loosely curled.  She regarded it in the mirror with an anxious frown, then spoke of it to the hairdresser.

Haward, smiling, watched her with heavy-lidded eyes.  “Mr. Lee is a fortunate gentleman,” he said.  “I may gain the rose, perhaps, in the country dance?”

“That is better,” remarked the lady, surveying with satisfaction the new-curled lock.  “The country dance?  For that Mr. Lightfoot hath my promise.”

“It seems that I am a laggard,” said Haward.

The knocker sounded below.  “I am at home, Chloe,” announced the mistress; and the slave, laying aside her work, slipped from the room.

Haward played with the trifles upon the dressing table.  “Wherein have I offended, Evelyn?” he asked, at last.

The lady arched her brows, and the action made her for the moment very like her handsome father.  “Why, there is no offense!” she cried.  “An old acquaintance, a family friend!  I step a minuet with Mr. Lee; I stand up for a country dance with Mr. Lightfoot; I wear pink instead of blue, and have lost my liking for white roses,—­what is there in all this that needs such a question?  Ah, you have broken my silver chain!”

“I am clumsy to-day!” he exclaimed.  “A thousand pardons!” He let the broken toy slip from his fingers to the polished surface of the table, and forgot that it was there.  “Since Colonel Byrd (I am sorry to learn) keeps his room with a fit of the gout, may I—­an old acquaintance, a family friend—­conduct you to the Palace to-night?”

The fan waved on.  “Thank you, but I go in our coach, and need no escort.”  The lady yawned, very delicately, behind her slender fingers; then dropped the fan, and spoke with animation:  “Ah, here is Mr. Lee!  In a good hour, sir!  I saw the bracelet that you mended for Mistress Winston.  Canst do as much for my poor chain here?  See! it and this silver heart have parted company.”