Читать книгу The Carcellini Emerald, With Other Tales онлайн

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It was quite filled up now with guests who had come in—the women complacent in gorgeous gowns, the men lagging, beginning to be bored, eager for food, and inclined to take pessimistic views of life by and large. They were waiting for some one, it appeared; and presently, as the door was thrown open, “Mr. and Mrs. Farnsworth and Mr. Oliver” were heralded.

Eunice, hurrying forward to explain to the hostess that one of their horses had slipped and fallen upon the asphalt, was royal in her young beauty. In her robes of shimmering rose color, her head, neck, and bodice coruscating with jewels, she stirred Carmichael’s selfish heart as nothing in woman’s shape had done before. He had to turn away to avoid showing his emotion.

“Don’t stare after Mrs. Farnsworth and forget you’ve got to take me in,” said, in his ear, the piqued voice of Miss Gertrude Ellison. “I declare, she has just bewitched all the men. I wish mamma hadn’t thought it necessary to put her next to you. At this rate I shan’t get the least notice taken of me. Luckily, I’ve got on my other hand her brother, Tom Oliver, who is as much a beauty as she is, in his way.”