She followed him obediently, and her reappearance among her guests was hailed with enthusiasm,--Lady Winsleigh being particular effusive, almost too much so.
"Your headache has quite gone, dearest, hasn't it?" she inquired sweetly.
Thelma eyed her gravely. "I did not suffer from the headache, Clara," she said. "I was a little tired, but I am quite rested now."
Lady Winsleigh bit her lips rather vexedly, but said no more, and at that moment exclamations of delight broke from all assembled at the brilliant scene that suddenly flashed upon their eyes. Electricity, that radiant sprite whose magic wand has lately been bent to the service of man, had in less than a minute played such dazzling pranks in the gardens that they resembled the fabled treasure-houses discovered by Aladdin. Every tree glittered with sparkling clusters of red, blue, and green light--every flower-bed was bordered with lines and circles of harmless flame, and the fountains tossed up tall columns of amber rose, and amethyst spray against the soft blue darkness of the sky, in which a lustrous golden moon had just risen. The brilliancy of the illuminations showed up several dark figures strolling in couples about the grounds--romantic persons evidently, who were not to be persuaded to come indoors, even for the music of the band, which just then burst forth invitingly through the open windows of the picture-gallery.
Two of these pensive wanderers were Marcia Van Clupp and Lord Algernon Masherville,--and Lord Algy was in a curiously sentimental frame of mind, and weak withal, "comme une petite queue d'agneau affligé" He had taken a good deal of soda and brandy for his bilious headache, and, physically, he was much better,--but mentally he was not quite his ordinary self. By this it must not be understood that he was at all unsteadied by the potency of his medicinal tipple--he was simply in a bland humor--that peculiar sort of humor which finds strange and mystic beauty in everything, and contemplates the meanest trifles with emotions of large benevolence. He was conversational too, and inclined to quote poetry--this sort of susceptibleness often affects gentlemen after they have had an excellent dinner flavored with the finest Burgundy. Lord Algy was as mild, as tame, and as flabby as a sleeping jelly-fish,--and in this inoffensive, almost tender mood of his, Marcia pounced upon him. She looked ravishingly pretty in the moonlight, with a white wrap thrown carelessly round her head and shoulders, and her bold, bird-like eyes sparkling with excitement (for who that knows the pleasure of sports, is not excited when the fox is nearly run to earth?), and she stood with him beside one of the smaller illuminated fountains, raising her small white hand every now and then to catch some of the rainbow drops, and then with a laugh she would shake them off her little pearly nails into the air again. Poor Masherville could not help gazing at her with a lack-lustre admiration in his pale eyes,--and Marcia, calculating every move in her own shrewd mind, saw it. She turned her head away with a petulant yet coquettish movement.