Her dress was of filmy zephyr-like white chiffon, cut low to show the full lines of the neck and shoulders. Around the upper part of her beautiful bare arms, where they melted into the shoulders, was drawn a scarf of delicate lace. Where it crossed the waist line in V shape, was pinned an ivorytype miniature portrait of her proud mother, painted at her own age of twenty, which looked so strikingly like the living form above, it might have been taken for the image of a twin sister. A sash of pink ribbon encircled her figure. The skirt hung in full puffy lines draped over a number of under-skirts after the fashion of the period. The bottom of the skirt was finished with a border of lace on the top of which were set at intervals clusters of little pink roses wrought in silk. Her curly crown of black hair was parted in the middle and drawn low on the side of the face in two great waves and tied behind with a pink ribbon. The long ends were curled into four strands and thrown carelessly around her neck in front and hung to the waist. Her head was circled with a tiny wreath of the living pink roses from which the silk ones had been modelled. To John’s fancy this wreath against her black hair seemed the jewelled crown of a queen set in priceless rubies. She poured the tea with her bare arm uplifted in a fascinating pose, the right arm curved just enough to tilt the teapot and yet preserve the dimple at her elbow. In all his life he could not remember an arm like these--so graceful, so seductive each little movement, they seemed to possess a conscious soul of their own. Her whole being spoke the charm of the boundless vitality of youth just budding into perfect womanhood. Her delicate skin flashed its tints in harmony with every mood of thought in her voice. She had as a divine gift a sensitiveness of expression, so acute that it could be controlled by the fierce will which hid beneath the velvet surface. She could blush at will because her imagination was so vivid that she could direct its powers by a subtle process of auto-suggestion. John had not realised until he saw her eat how wonderful were the lines of her luscious lips. He felt that he could sit there forever and watch her dainty wrist and tapering fingers lift the cup. Her eyes were friendly to-night! They looked at him with dreamy tenderness, a childlike trust, and perfect faith. How could he live through the evening without telling her of his love! Yet he must keep silent. He felt with deep foreboding an approaching catastrophe which must soon overwhelm the men who had created an Empire whose power they could not control. That Empire had left a stain of blood on the floor of this house--a stain that must forever darken his own life and hers--and yet--how could he give her up? He rose from the table at her suggestion and followed her in a spell as she lifted a silver candlestick above her head and started to explore the house.