She played for some few minutes with the rings on her fingers, smiling
to herself a soft, dreamy smile, as though her thoughts were very
pleasant ones; then she took up a volume of poems, read a few lines, and
then laid the book down again. The dark eyes, with a gleam of impatience
in them, wandered to the clock.

"How slowly those hands move!" she said.

"You are restless," observed a calm, low voice; "watching a clock always
makes time seem long."

"Ah, Lady Peters," said the rich, musical tones, "when I cease to be
young, I shall cease to be impatient."

Lady Peters, the chosen confidante and chaperon of the brilliant
heiress, was an elderly lady whose most striking characteristic appeared
to be calmness and repose. She was richly dressed in a robe of black
_moire_, and she wore a cap of point lace; her snowy hair was braided
back from a broad white brow; her face was kindly, patient, cheerful;
her manner, though somewhat stately, the same. She evidently deeply
loved the beautiful girl whose bright face was turned to hers.

"He said three in his note, did he not, Lady Peters?"

"Yes, my dear, but it is impossible for any one to be always strictly
punctual; a hundred different things may have detained him."

"But if he were really anxious to see me, he would not let anything
detain him," she said.