86
the Human Heart, and perhaps he
sighed. Time seemed to forget to turn
his hourglass, and it was late when
Margaret got home that afternoon. She
had barely time to dress for Mrs. Dar-
lington's dinner.
"I hear," observed the Colonel, who was primping over his tie, **that Mrs. D. has a new lion to roar this evening. He's a Portuguese count, they tell me. It beats the devil! That woman is a regular collector of social curios."
Margaret smiled divinely, and tuck- ed up a little curl that kept rippling out of her coiffure.
'T should like to meet him," she said, brightly, and her father looked at her in astonishment.
This was the first time she had shown even a conventional interest in a man since she came from Pekin. To-night her eyes shown like stars, her cheeks were faintly flushed with a lovely color, and about her soft, curving lips hover- ed a smile of happiness. She wore an exquisite gown of white embroidered Chinese crepe.
"Damn that Chinaman!" the Colonel said again, as he had said many times before. **I am glad to see Madge is get- ting over that affair. I might marry her to a Portuguese Count, but I won't have any 'Fourteenth Sons of the Sev- en Radiant Stars' in the family!"
The dinner at Mrs. Darlington's was a splendid affair.
radiant, charming. He was a very handsome fellow, not very tall, with a clear, olive skin, a small black mous- tache and very white teeth.
"If it wasn't for that moustache and his short hair and his clothes," mut- tered the Colonel, "he'd look enough like Prince Lo to be his brother."
After the first wave ~f repulsion, agi- tated by his startling likeness to the objectionable Chinaman, the Colonel braced up and became very affable. The Count evidently admired Margaret and he asked permission to call.
This was how the affair began, and in six weeks time all Seattle was in a ferment over the announcement that Margaret Folsom was going to marry a Portuguese nobleman.
Margaret was radiantly happy. She had apparently so far forgotten the Pekin affair that her father ventured to say to her one day:
"By the way, Madge, I see by the papers that Prince Lo has disappeared, and they fear he has been murdered by the Boxers. He was a great friend of the foreign residents, you know. They say that there isn't a' trace of him to be found anywhere. The Emperor is wild. His fortune has gone, too. You know the Dowager Empress left him all her private property, because he had no ancestral estate. She had magnifi- cent jewels."
"I hope he hasn't been murdered," said Margaret, quietly; but her eyes were lowered and there was a percepti- ble change of color in her fair face. "He was such a nice fellow
"I am awfully afraid that
Count Cabello isn't com
ing!" murmured the hostess in vexation.
It was five minutes past the hour, but as though his tardy arrival were a stud- ied effect, the distinguished Portu- guese appeared, just as they were go- ing out of the dining room.
"Count Sebastian Henriquez Antonio del Cabello" was announced with all due emphasis.
The Colonel uttered a suppressed ex- clamation. It sounded like, "Well, I'll
be damned if it " and then it broke
off. The count was exquisitely dressed,
— an awfully nice fellow!"
"I know you thought so once," said the Colonel, laughing mischievously. He could afford to laugh now. "But I fancy you think more of the Portu- guese as a race than you think of the Chinese."
Margaret blushed prettily and smiled.
"They have pH^i^il^^bfC^J^f P""^^
