Weaker than a Woman — page 177: what you’re looking at

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168 WEAKER THAN A WOMAN. He could not imagine what she meant, but he said that he hoped whatever might be the test she would not find him wanting. “I have no fear as to that,” she said, earnestly. “Mr. Lonsdale, I want to tell you that Lady Chevenix will be here this evening. Papa made up his list of invitations _ during my absence, and I could do nothing.” She was glad that they were alone. His face grew white as death—so white that she was alarmed; he stood quite still, and she saw his hands tremble. She talked on that he might have time to recover himself. “I would have prevented it had it been possible, but it was not. You have never seen her since her marriage, and I'am told that she has grown doubly beautiful. Still, if you do not feel equal to meeting her, you shall not.” She saw the great effort that he made to recover himself. He succeeded; the color returned to his face; he stilled the trembling of his hands; he smiled as he answered her: “You are so good to me, Lady Maude, that I am at a loss how to thank you for giving me this warning. I needed it. JfI had met Lady Chevenix suddenly I should have been terribly embarrassed ; now lam master of my- self.” . ‘And will keep so?” said Lady Maude, earnestly. ‘And will keep so,” he repeated. Then the countess joined them, and presently one or two more entered the room. ‘“ Look,” said Lady Maude, as she touched Felix’s arm gently. 7 He looked in the direction indicated and beheld Violet, so changed from the lovely laughing girl who had kissed him and quarreled with him twenty times in an hour that he hardly recognized her. This was an imperially beauti- ful woman, on whose white breast and white arms shone . jewels worth a king’s ransom—a woman whose face was so peerlessly lovely that it dazzled one as did the light of the sun. Violet wore one of the triumphs of ‘art that she had brought with her from Paris; and nothing could have been devised to enhance her loveliness more. Her dress was composed of some pale green fabric, soft and shining, cov- ered with clouds of white lace looped up with water-lilies, and in her golden hair nestled a delicate, wax-like camellia. She wore a parure of diamonds and emeralds. Her white shoulders and well-molded arms helped to Gompose a pic- comicbooks.com