It is astonishing what
efforts freemen will make in a just cause.
Lord Skye himself treated the whole affair with easy contempt.
One afternoon he strolled into Mrs. Lee's parlour and begged her to
give him a cup of tea.
He said he had got rid of his menagerie for a few hours by shunting
it off upon the German Legation, and he was by way of wanting a
little human society. Sybil, who was a great favourite with him,
entreated to be told all about the ball, but he insisted that he knew
no more than she did. A man from New York had taken possession
of the Legation, but what he would do with it was not within the
foresight of the wisest; trom the talk of the young members of his
Legation, Lord Skye gathered that the entire city was to be roofed
in and forty millions of people expected, but his own concern in
the affair was limited to the flowers he hoped to receive.
"All young and beautiful women," said he to Sybil, "are to send me
flowers.
I prefer Jacqueminot roses, but will accept any handsome variety,
provided they are not wired. It is diplomatic etiquette that each
lady who sends me flowers shall reserve at least one dance for me.
You will please inscribe this at once upon your tablets, Miss
Ross."
To Madeleine this ball was a godsend, for it came just in time to
divert Sybil's mind from its troubles. A week had now passed since
that revelation of Sybil's heart which had come like an earthquake
upon Mrs. Lee. Since then Sybil had been nervous and irritable, all
the more because she was conscious of being watched.
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