Act II - Page 2

to Marguerite should be. The defensive pride of the peasant's
daughter--morbidly sensitive to the inequality between her social
position and his--would be secretly roused against him if he ventured on
a rich offering. A gift, which a poor man's purse might purchase, was
the one gift that could be trusted to find its way to her heart, for the
giver's sake. Stoutly resisting temptation, in the form of diamonds and
rubies, Vendale bought a brooch of the filagree-work of Genoa--the
simplest and most unpretending ornament that he could find in the
jeweller's shop.

He slipped his gift into Marguerite's hand as she held it out to welcome
him on the day of the dinner.

"This is your first New Year's Day in England," he said. "Will you let
me help to make it like a New Year's Day at home?"

She thanked him, a little constrainedly, as she looked at the jeweller's
box, uncertain what it might contain. Opening the box, and discovering
the studiously simple form under which Vendale's little keepsake offered
itself to her, she penetrated his motive on the spot. Her face turned on
him brightly, with a look which said, "I own you have pleased and
flattered me." Never had she been so charming, in Vendale's eyes, as she
was at that moment. Her winter dress--a petticoat of dark silk, with a
bodice of black velvet rising to her neck, and enclosing it softly in a
little circle of swansdown--heightened, by all the force of contrast, the
dazzling fairness of her hair and her complexion. It was only when she
turned aside from him to the glass, and, taking out the brooch that she
wore, put his New Year's gift in its place, that Vendale's attention
wandered far enough away from her to discover the presence of other
persons in the room. He now became conscious that the hands of
Obenreizer were affectionately in possession of his elbows. He now heard
the voice of Obenreizer thanking him for his attention to Marguerite,
with the faintest possible ring of mockery in its tone. ("Such a simple
present, dear sir! and showing such nice tact!") He now discovered, for
the first time, that there was one other guest, and but one, besides
himself, whom Obenreizer presented as a compatriot and friend. The
friend's face was mouldy, and the friend's figure was fat. His age was
suggestive of the autumnal period of human life. In the course of the
evening he developed two extraordinary capacities. One was a capacity
for silence; the other was a capacity for emptying bottles.

Madame Dor was not in the room. Neither was there any visible place
reserved for her when they sat down to table. Obenreizer explained that
it was "the good Dor's simple habit to dine always in the middle of the
day. She