An earl's daughter--though a bankrupt--is a fitting mate for a Kingsland." Lady Louise sat at the piano, the soft light falling full on her pale, statuesque face, and making an aureole around her fair, shapely head.
Sir Everard Kingsland crossed over and stood beside her, and Lord and Lady Carteret exchanged significant glances, and smiled.
It was a very desirable thing, indeed; they had brought Louise down for no other earthly reason; and Louise was playing her cards, and playing them well.
If Sir Everard had one taste stronger than another it was his taste for music, and Lady Louise held him spell-bound now.

She played, and her fingers seemed inspired; she sung, and few non-professionals sung like that.
The chain of brittle glass that bound the captive beside her grew stronger.

A wife who could bewitch the hours away with such music as this would be no undesirable possession for a _blase_ man.

He stooped over her as she arose from the piano at last.
"Come out on the balcony," he said.

"The night is lovely, and the good people yonder are altogether engrossed in their cards and their small-talk." Without a word she stepped with him from the open French window out into the starlit night.
What is it that Byron says about solitude, and moonlight, and youth?
A dangerous combination, truly; and so Sir Everard Kingsland found, standing side by side with this pale daughter of a hundred earls.