The Glittering Lights (Bantam Series No. 12) by Barbara Cartland

largeness of the diamonds, before she walked across to her dressing-table to place it in a drawer.
    “Have you not to change?” Cassandra asked. “Would you like me to wait in the theatre?”
    “No, you cannot go there alone,” Mrs. Langtry said. “You must wait for Mr. Gebhard to arrive, and then he will take you to the Box. In the meantime, sit in that chair in the corner and keep very quiet. I have about fifteen minutes to rest before my dresser will begin to get me ready.”
    The next three-quarters of an hour was to Cassandra one of the most interesting experiences she had ever had.
    When Mrs. Langtry rose from the couch where she had lain with closed eyes, her hair-dresser had arrived to arrange her hair, and the dresser to get her elaborate gowns ready for the performance.
    Cassandra saw that the mirror was electro-lighted to Mrs. Langtry’s own special design, and an ingenious arrangement of colours such as blue, red and amber could be obtained at will.
    “This makes it easy,” Mrs. Langtry explained, “for me to tell how my gowns will look when I am on the stage.”
    It was continually reiterated in the Press that Mrs. Langtry wore no make-up, but that, Cassandra saw, was untrue.
    She deliberately contrived a very pale appearance by using only the faintest touch of rouge on her cheeks, and a powder which was sold in the shops with her name on it.
    She out-lined her eyes, darkened her eye-lashes and eye-brows, and finally used a lip-salve sparingly on her mouth.
    Cassandra was particularly interested because in the carriage on the way to the theatre, despite Hannah’s horrified protests, she had added a touch of colour to her lips and also used powder on her cheeks.
    “Whatever are you doing, Miss Cassandra?” Hannah had exclaimed in a tone of horror. “What will people be thinking of you if they see you painted like an actress.”
    “I am supposed to be an actress,” Cassandra had answered.
    “And that’s nothing to boast about!” Hannah snapped.
    “I have an uneasy suspicion that your sentiments are echoed by the majority of the public,” Cassandra answered.
    Then she closed her ears to the long impassioned recitation of Hannah’s disapproval.
    Now she noted how skilfully Mrs. Langtry enhanced her appearance while remaining both lady-like and overwhelmingly beautiful.
    Finally, a quarter of an hour before the curtain was due to rise, Mr. Frederick Gebhard arrived.
    Cassandra remembered reading that this young American had returned with Mrs. Langtry from New York.
    Some of her father’s more disreputable papers which she was not supposed to read, such as The Sporting Times , known as “The Pink ’Un,” had made some pointed remarks concerning the amount of money the man they called a “Boudoir-Carriage Romeo” had spent on Mrs. Langtry.
    Freddy Gebhard who had been bowled over by Lily Langtry’s beauty the first night they met, was four years younger than she was.
    He was the son of a dry goods businessman, who had left him a yearly income of between eighty and ninety thousand dollars. Tall, clean shaven and elegant, his Fifth Avenue tailors rated him as New York’s “Best Dressed Man,” but he bought most of his clothes, which were always dark in colour, in London.
    Freddy Gebhard had made the headlines by not only giving Lily Langtry his cheque book, but defending her physically against any admirer who tried to force his acquaintance upon her.
    He had knocked out a man who had tried to introduce himself to Lily in St. Louis, and he was lionised by the local bloods during the rest of the week.
    He had almost as much Press coverage in the American papers as Lily herself, and by the time Gebhard had gone with her on tour in a private railway-car he had built to her design, he was determined to marry her.
    The railway-car advertised his infatuation. It was seventy feet long, painted blue, emblazoned with wreaths of golden lilies, encircling the name “Lalee.” Brass lilies decorated the