Her maid, a trim English girl, gave her a dress of white clairette cloth, whose soft, lustrous folds fell about the slender, graceful form with statuesque grace. She wore a wide sash of soft, white silk, tied at the side in long, graceful loops. She was only medium height, but the costume made her look tall, and when Betty had fastened the pearls on the bare white arms and the bare throat, exposed by a square-necked bodice, she--the poor working girl so suddenly transplanted into an atmosphere of wealth and luxury--looked like a young princess, so graceful was her form, so beautiful her face, with its glorious, dark-brown eyes, whose dazzling light was all that was needed to relieve the severity of her pure white drapery. “Mother likes me in white,” she said, with a gratified glance into the broad mirror, and, taking up her big bunch of white ostrich feathers, called by Dame Fashion a fan, she swept out, followed by the admiring remark from Betty: “I like you in any color, miss. You look sweet in all.” She went on, with a smile at the maid’s flattery, humming, as she walked, the low refrain of a love song--then the drawing-room door opened. She was on the threshold, a lovely, slender shape, all in white, with a vivid face lighted by starry eyes and crowned by shining red-gold hair; and a man had started up in amazement from Mrs. Howard’s side, and was staring at her with wondering eyes. She did not see him at first, for she was greeting several friends; but all at once she heard Converse say at her side: “I’ve brought the American author, Miss Howard. Here he is--Bayard Lorraine!” When they stood face to face, she was the calmer of the two. She had been nerving herself for this so long, looking for it, longing for it, that now, with a glad consciousness of her perfect beauty, and an inward thrill of deep emotion, she could greet Bayard Lorraine with a lovely girlish dignity all her own. It was he who looked startled, disturbed. He stared at her in perplexity, as if she had been a ghost. Fair looked at him with a smile. She could guess what made him stare in such surprise. She made him think of the girl whose life he had saved two years ago. “He remembers my face, although he was too proud to ask my name,” she thought, and it soothed her wounded pride to think that he had at least retained some memory of her through the time that had elapsed. But not for worlds would she have owned to her identity. “We meet now on equal terms,” was her swift thought, and she determined to hold her vantage ground. What could come of it? Nothing! She was not free, and it was more than likely that he was married. Yet a headlong fate seemed to urge her on to know him better, to make the most of her opportunity, to gain from this fleeting chance some more bittersweet memories to wear thread-bare with constant usage in coming years.