Devil's Wind Read Free Page B

stronger desire to see her niece Adela married; she controlled herself, therefore, and talked at large about Hetty, and Hetty’s glory, only returning to Adela’s affairs in the calm of the tea-hour.
    Finally, she resumed her shawl, pinned it across her chest with a very large cameo brooch, bordered with plaited hair, rose majestically, and pecked at her sister’s cheek.
    â€œYou are not going?”
    â€œI must get back. I promised Hetty. Now, Lucy, take my advice, get Adela safely married to this Captain Morton. Once a girl has got herself talked about, her chances are gone. Especially if she is pretty. People always believe the worst of a pretty girl—get her married. Goodness me, Lucy, what is the use of looking at me like that? If no one else tells you the truth, I do—I always did, and I always shall, and perhaps some day you will be grateful to me. Good-bye, Helen. When do you sail for India? Hasn’t Edward sent the money for your passage yet? Oh, he has. Well, it is time. Your grandmother has been dead six months, and really if Lucy had not been able to take you in, I don’t know what you would have done. I couldn’t have invited you for the best part of a year.”
    When Helen had taken her aunt downstairs, she came back into the drawing-room and shut the door. She was smiling a little.
    â€œPoor Sir Henry,” she said.
    â€œOh, my dear, why?” protested Mrs. Lauriston, a little shocked that any one should pity a baronet with fifteen thousand a year.
    â€œHetty is going to be exactly like Aunt Harriet. That’s why,” said Helen.

CHAPTER II
    HOW CAPTAIN MORTON TALKED ABOUT DISCIPLINE
    Serve seven years for Honour and seven years for Love.
    The children of Honour are many, thou shalt establish them, branch and root.
    And what of the children of Love, shall Love then bear no fruit?
    Sufficient unto the day is the good and the evil thereof.
    As Adela Lauriston crossed the ballroom at Lavington House a good many people watched her, and then turned to whisper with their friends.
    Adela was worth looking at. Even Hetty Lavington admitted that, though her round, prominent eyes were full of disapproval as she observed her cousin, and noted that it was on Francis Manners’s arm that she was leaving the room. “Really!” she said, in a low angry voice, and Sir Henry Lavington, who knew very well what she meant, tried to look as disapproving as he was expected to. He did not really find it very easy. A good many people had expected Adela Lauriston to stand in her cousin Hetty’s place. Hetty Middleton’s engagement had come as a great surprise to these people. Rumour even had it that it had come as a surprise to Sir Henry himself. He looked away from Hetty in her diamonds, and her unbecoming dress, and his eyes followed Adela, as she went lightly and proudly down the long room; she was not tall, but how well she moved, and how all these lights flattered her!
    Her hair, a dark chestnut in colour, fell all about her shoulders, in a shower of curls,—those curls to which Harriet Middleton objected so strongly. They shaded a face which Greuze might have painted, and were caught over the ear on either side by a scarlet geranium. Adela’s colouring stood the test triumphantly, for her lips were as red as the flowers, and the tint in her cheeks, though much fainter, was just as pure and fine.
    From under arched brows, her hazel eyes looked smilingly upon all this crowd of people who must be admiring her in her new dress. It was her last glance in the mirror that had waked the smile. She carried with her a pleasant memory of many white silk flounces, all veiled with blonde, and caught up here and there with vivid clusters of geranium flowers.
    She smiled very sweetly under Francis Manners’s admiring gaze, and her modestly dropped eyes caught a faint reflection of her white and scarlet bravery from the polished floor at her feet.
    â€œBy Jove,