“And is that lovely lady married to such a man?”

“Yes; the lovely lady was very young, and perhaps his fortune tempted her.  She is all fire and poetry, plays with passion as children play with sharp knives.”

“Will you introduce me?” asked Basil Carruthers.

“My dear Basil,” replied the wily diplomatist, with an air of assumed frankness, “I really do not think you would like her.  She is fond of balls, of dancing, of all sorts of amusements that you despise.  If I introduce you to anybody at all, it must be to Minerva in disguise.”

“I should not like Minerva,” was the abrupt reply.

“Well, as you seem anxious, I will undertake it.  We are going to the Duchess of Hexham’s ball tomorrow evening.  Lady Amelie Lisle is sure to be there—­no grand ball is complete without her.  She is so surrounded now.  I hardly like to interrupt her.  Are you going to the Hexham ball?”

Now Basil had said no, he should certainly decline the invitation, but he seemed to forget it.

“Certainly I shall go,” he said.

“Ah, then we shall see her there,” replied the colonel, and his long mustache concealed the triumphant smile with which he listened to the words.

CHAPTER VIII.

Lady Amelie at Home.

The poets of old must have been thinking of a woman like Lady Amelie when they wrote of circes and sirens, and women whose beauty has proved fatal to men.  It is perhaps quite as well that they are very rare—­the power of a beautiful woman is great.  If she be good, and use it for a good purpose; the world is the better for it.  If she be bad, and her beauty is simply used as a lure, the world is the worse for it.

Either for good or evil, the power of Lady Amelie was great, for a more royally beautiful woman had seldom been seen.  She was the very ideal of glowing, luxurious loveliness, and her beauty was perhaps the least of her charms.  She had that wonderful gift of fascination which makes even a plain woman irresistible.  Allied to beauty so wondrous as hers, it was fatal.

It is morning, and Lady Amelie, fresh and radiant as a June rose, is in her boudoir, an exquisite little room, hung with pink silk and white lace; the windows were draped with pink silk, and the light that came through was subdued and rosy, the fairest of all lights in which to see a fair woman.

A gem of a room, from which a painter would have made a room glowing in luxurious color.  The air was heavy with the perfume of white hyacinths and daphnes—­the jardinieres were filled with the sweetest of flowers; Lady Amelie loved them so well; she was never so pleased as when in the midst of them.  There was a marble Flora, whose hands were filled with purple heliotropes—­in fact, every beauty that money, taste or luxury could suggest, was there.  Pale pink was a color that Lady Amelie loved—­her chairs and couches were covered with it.  She is sitting now in a pretty, fantastic chair, the subdued rosy light of the room falling full upon her.  She is reading the fashionable daily paper, smiling as some on dits meet her eye.  Surely such beauty as that should be immortal.  No wonder that Basil Carruthers, whose eyes had never rested long on a woman’s face before, should not weary of hers.