Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/177

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ETHEL CHURCHILL.
175

the forced composure of a desperate resolve. She was too agitated to rest: more than once she opened a volume, but only to close it hastily again without reading a single line; and then, starting from her seat, she resumed her hasty walk up and down the room.

The chair being announced, she fastened on her mask, and drew her domino round her, it not being her intention to display her splendid and fantastic costume till supper, when all the guests were expected to unmask. On her entrance into the ball-room, she drew her dark envelope more closely round; but in her hand there were the red and white roses.

"Ah, I needed not those signal flowers," said a low, sweet voice; and, garbed as a Spaniard, which suited well with his stately figure, Sir George Kingston came to her side. She took his arm in silence; all she had intended to say seemed like the words of a dream; for a few, a very few, moments she could he alive to nothing but the happiness of his presence.

Love has to every one its separate emo-