The Curved Blades

"Garden Steps" was one of the show-places of Merivale Park, Long Island. In summer it was an enchanting spot, and the dazzling white marble steps which led to the sunken gardens justified their right to give the place its name. Other stone steps gave on terraces and flower banks, others still led to the Italian landscape gardens, and a few rustic steps of a wooden stile transported one to an old-fashioned garden, whose larkspur and Canterbury bells were the finest of their sort.

The house seemed an integral part of this setting. Its wide verandahs, or more often loggias, were so lavishly furnished with flowering plants, its windows so boxed with them, that the whole effect was that of a marvellously well-planned horticultural exhibition.

But all this was of the summer. In winter--for it was an all-round-the-year home--only the varied and extraordinary collection of evergreens shared with the steps the honor of making picturesque and beautiful the view from the house windows.

And now, in January, one of the all too seldom enjoyed white snow storms had glorified the whole estate. Wind-swept drifts half hid, half disclosed the curving marble balustrades, and turned the steps to snowy fairyland flights.

And, for it was night, a cold, dear, perfect winter night, a supercilious moon looked down, a little haughtily and condescended to illumine the scene in stunning, if a bit theatric, fashion.

"Ripping picture, eh?" said Gray Haviland, as he held back the heavy curtain for the golden-haired young woman at his side to look out.

"Oh, isn't it a wonderful sight!" And as Anita Frayne took a step forward, toward the casement, Haviland let the curtain fall behind him and the two were alone in the deep embrasure of the wide bay-window.

"Not nearly such a wonderful sight as you are!" Haviland swung her round to face him, and stood gazing at the pretty, doll-like face that half laughed, half frowned into his own.

"Me! I'm not like a moonlit landscape!"

"No, you're just a golden morsel of summer sunshine----" Haviland's eulogy was interrupted by a petulant voice calling shrilly:

"Where are you two? I hear you talking; come on. I'm waiting."

"Oh, Lord! come on," and, holding the curtain aside, he let Anita pass and then followed her.

"Here we are, Cousin Lucy, all ready for the fray. Good evening, Count."

Count Charlier bowed Frenchily, and Anita gave him the bright, flashing smile that she kept on hand for mankind in general, and which was quite different from that she used on special occasions or for special friends.

Annoyed at the duration of this delaying smile, Miss Lucy Carrington tapped impatiently on the bridge table, and looked her impatience most unmistakably.

Mistress of Garden Steps, wealthy, well-born, of assured social position, capable and efficient, Miss Carrington lacked the one gift of Fate for which she would have bartered all else. She was not beautiful, and had not even enough pretension to good looks to think herself beautiful. Plain features, graying hair--dyed red--big, prominent light-blue eyes, and a pasty, pudgy complexion left no hope for the miracles worked by beauty doctors to avail in her case. Her figure was short and dumpy, the despair of her staymakers, and her taste in dress ran to the extremes in coloring and fashion.

Passionately fond of all beauty, Miss Carrington felt keenly her own lack of it, and to this lack she attributed the fact that she was a spinster. Those who knew her felt there might be other reasons why her suitors had been few, but, as a matter of fact, the acidity of her disposition was a direct result of her disappointed, loveless life, and even yet, though nearing fifty, Miss Lucy Carrington had by no means laid aside all thoughts of matrimonial adventure.