A Blue
Hungarian Band was playing dreamily the waltz of the season, to the
accompaniment of light laughter and gaily tripping feet. The scent of
roses filled the air. Masses of their great pink blooms lurked in every
small nook and corner; while in the centre of the room, half-hidden by
them, a fountain sent its silver spray into the heated air.
If wealth and luxury alone could bring happiness, then surely Eveline
Merivale should have been the most envied woman in the world. A renowned
beauty, a leader of fashion, with every wish and ambition
gratified--save the one which, at present, the chief object of her
life--to enslave and retain, as her exclusive property, Adrien Leroy.
Her husband, the Earl of Merivale, she regarded as a necessary
encumbrance, inevitable to the possession of the famous Merivale
diamonds. His hobby was farming, and he detested Society; though quite
content that his wife should be made queen so long as he was left in
peace with his shorthorns.
Certainly Eveline Merivale was not in love with her husband; but, on the
other hand, neither was she in love with Adrien Leroy. It simply added a
zest to her otherwise monotonous round of amusements to imagine that she
was; and it pleased her vanity to correspond in cypher, through the
medium of the Morning Post, though every member of her set might have
read the flippant messages if put in an open letter.
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