In preparation for the evening's entertainment the furniture had been moved away except for a number of chairs and divans. The two tall marble mantels were banked with roses and violets and baskets of roses swung from the two crystal chandeliers.
With a murmured exclamation the girl dropped down on a low stool in the corner where the evergreens almost entirely concealed her and where she appeared more like an elf creature that had come into the house with the green things surrounding her than an everyday girl. For a quarter of an hour she must have remained there alone, when she was aroused from her reverie by some one's entrance. Then, although the girl did not move or speak, her whole face changed and the sullen, unhappy look disappeared, while oddly her eyes filled with tears.
There could have been nothing fairer in the room than the woman who had just come quietly into it. She must have been about twenty-eight years old; her hair was a beautiful auburn, like sunshine on certain brown and red leaves in the woods in late October; her eyes were gray, and she was of little more than medium height, with slender hips, but a full throat and chest. At the present moment she was wearing a house gown of light blue cashmere, and although she looked as if life might always before have been kind to her, at present her face was pale and there were marks of sleeplessness about her eyes and mouth.
Apparently trying to summon an interest in her surroundings which she scarcely felt, she glanced about the room until her eyes rested on the silent girl.
"Why, Angel, what are you doing in here alone, child? How lovely everything looks, and yet I am afraid I cannot come down to receive people tonight. All afternoon I have been trying to make up my mind to attempt it and each moment it seems more impossible."
Then with a gesture indicating both fatigue and discouragement the woman sat down, folding her hands in her lap.
"But the baby isn't any worse, I heard only half an hour ago," the younger girl interrupted quickly, and in answer to a shake of the head from her companion went on: "You simply must be present tonight, Princess. This is the greatest night in your husband's career and you know the Inaugural Ball would be an entire failure without you! Staying up-stairs won't do little Tony any good. And think what it would mean to the Governor to have to manage all alone! You know you promised Anthony before his election that you would attend to the social side of his office for him, as he declared he didn't know enough to undertake it. So you can't desert him at the very beginning."