While Zoe was picking her to pieces, Ina, having settled matters with Ashmead, looked up, and, of course, took in every other woman who was in sight at a single sweep. She recognized Zoe directly, with a flush of pleasure; a sweet, bright expression broke over her face, and she bowed to her with a respectful cordiality that was captivating.
Zoe yielded to the charm of manner, and bowed and smiled in return, though, till that moment, she had been knitting her black brows at her in wonder and vague suspicion.
Ina trifled with the game, at first. Ashmead was still talking to her of the young swell and his system. He explained it to her, and how it had failed. "Not but what," said he, "there is a great deal in it most evenings. But to-day there are no runs; it is all turn and turn about. If it would rain, now, you would see a change.""Well," said Ina, "I will bet a few pounds on red, then on black, till these runs begin."During the above conversation, of which Zoe caught little, because Ashmead was the chief speaker, she cast her eyes all round the table and saw a curious assemblage of figures.
There was a solemn Turk melting his piasters with admirable gravity;there was the Russian princess; and there was a lady, dressed in loud, incongruous colors, such as once drew from a horrified modiste the cry, "Ah, Dieu! quelle immoralite'!" and that's a fact. There was a Popish priest, looking sheepish as he staked his silver, and an Anglican rector, betting flyers, and as _nonchalant,_ in the blest absence of his flock and the Baptist minister, as if he were playing at whist with the old Bishop of Norwich, who played a nightly rubber in my father's day--and a very bad one. There was a French count, nearly six feet high, to whom the word "old" would have been unjust: he was antique, and had turned into bones and leather; but the hair on that dilapidated trunk was its own;and Zoe preferred him much to the lusty old English beau beside him, with ivory teeth and ebon locks that cost a pretty penny.
There was a fat, livid Neapolitan betting heavily; there was a creole lady, with a fine oval face, rather sallow, and eyes and hair as black as Zoe's own. Indeed, the creole excelled her, by the addition of a little black fringe upon her upper lip that, prejudice apart, became her very well. Her front hair was confined by two gold threads a little way apart, on which were fixed a singular ornament, the vivid eyes of a peacock's tail set close together all round. It was glorious, regal. The hussy should have been the Queen of Sheba, receiving Solomon, and showing her peacock's eyes against his crown-jewels. Like the lilies of the field, these products of nature are bad to beat, as we say on Yorkshire turf.
Indeed that frontlet was so beautiful and well placed, it drew forth glances of marked disdain from every lady within sight of it, Zoe excepted. She was placable. This was a lesson in color; and she managed to forgive the teacher, in consideration of the lesson.