And so, at the appointed hour, when the banker called at the office of the _National Liberator_ he found the young gentleman in evening dress ready to accompany him home.
Salome Levison was dressed for dinner, and seated in the drawing-room with her chaperone, Lady Belgrade.
Salome was certainly not expecting any guest.

But she intended to go to the opera that evening with Lady Belgrade, to hear the last act of Norma.
Luckily for Sir Lemuel's plan, it was not a peremptory engagement, and could easily be set aside.
On this evening she was beautifully dressed.

She wore a delicate tea-rose tinted rich silk skirt, with an over skirt of point lace, looped up with tea-rose buds, a tea-rose in her dark hair, a necklace of opals set in diamonds, and bracelets of the same beautiful jewels.

Refined, elegant, and most interesting she certainly looked.
Meanwhile, the banker came home, and himself conducted the unexpected guest to the drawing-room.
"Mr.John Scott, my dear," said Sir Lemuel, bringing the young gentleman up to his daughter.
The young marquis caught the sudden lighting up of those soft, gray eyes, and the sudden flushing of those delicate cheeks.
It was but for an instant; for even as he bowed before her, her eyes fell and her color faded.
It was but for an instant, yet in that glance those eyes had again revealed her soul to his.
The young marquis was not a vain man.

He could not at once believe the evidence of his own consciousness.