“And you maintain that it is five years since we met,” she was saying to the tall Frenchman.
“Have I not counted every day?” he replied.
“I do not know,” she answered, with a little laugh, that little laugh which tells wise men where flattery may be shot like so much conversational rubbish. Some women are fathomless pits, the rubbish never seems to fill them. “I do not know, but I should not think so.”
“Well, madam, it is so. Witness these gray hairs. Ah! those were happy days in St. Petersburg.”
Mrs. Sydney Bamborough smiled—a pleasant society smile, not too pronounced and just sufficient to suggest pearly teeth. At the mention of St. Petersburg she glanced round to see that they were not overheard. She gave a little shiver.
“Don’t speak of Russia!” she pleaded. “I hate to hear it mentioned. I was so happy. It is painful to remember.”
Even while she spoke the expression of her face changed to one of gay delight. She nodded and smiled toward a tall man who was evidently looking for her, and took no notice of the Frenchman’s apologies.
“Who is that?” asked the young man. “I see him everywhere lately.”
“A mere English gentleman, Mr. Paul Howard Alexis,” replied the lady.
The Frenchman raised his eyebrows. He knew better. This was no plain English gentleman. He bowed and took his leave. M. de Chauxville of the French Embassy was watching every movement, every change of expression, from across the room.
In evening dress the man whom we last saw on the platform of the railway station at Tver did not look so unmistakably English. It was more evident that he had inherited certain characteristics from his Russian mother—notably, his great height, a physical advantage enjoyed by many aristocratic Russian families. His hair was fair and inclined to curl, and there the foreign suggestion suddenly ceased. His face had the quiet concentration, the unobtrusive self-absorption which one sees more strongly marked in English faces than in any others. His manner of moving through the well-dressed crowd somewhat belied the tan of his skin. Here was an out-of-door, athletic youth, who knew how to move in drawing-rooms—a big man who did not look much too large for his surroundings. It was evident that he did not know many people, and also that he was indifferent to his loss. He had come to see Mrs. Sydney Bamborough, and that lady was not insensible to the fact.
To prove this she diverged from the path of veracity, as is the way of some women.
“I did not expect to see you here,” she said.
“You told me you were coming,” he answered simply. The inference would have been enough for some women, but not for Etta Sydney Bamborough.
“Well, is that a reason why you should attend a diplomatic soirie, and force yourself to bow and smirk to a number of white-handed little dandies whom you despise?”
“The best reason,” he answered quietly, with an honesty which somehow touched her as nothing else had touched this beautiful woman since she had become aware of her beauty.
“Then you think it worth the bowing and the smirking?” she asked, looking past him with innocent eyes. She made an imperceptible little movement toward him as if she expected him to whisper. She was of that school. But he was not. His was not the sort of mind to conceive any thought that required whispering. Some persons in fact went so far as to say that he was hopelessly dull, that he had no subtlety of thought, no brightness, no conversation. These persons were no doubt ladies upon whom he had failed to lavish the exceedingly small change of compliment.
“It is worth that and more,” he replied, with his ready smile. “After all, bowing and smirking come very easily. One soon gets accustomed to it.”
“One has to,” she replied with a little sigh. “Especially if one is a woman, which little mishap comes to some of us, you know. I wonder if you could find me a chair.”
She was standing with her back to a small sofa capable of holding three, but calculated to accommodate two. She did not of course see it. In fact she looked everywhere but toward it, raising her perfectly gloved fingers tentatively for his arm.
“I am tired of standing,” she added.
He turned and indicated the sofa, toward which she immediately advanced. As she sat down he noted vaguely that she was exquisitely dressed, certainly one of the best dressed women in the room. Her costume was daring without being startling, being merely black and white largely, boldly contrasted. He felt indefinitely proud of the dress. Some instinct in the man’s simple, strong mind told him that it was good for women to be beautiful, but his ignorance of the sex being profound he had no desire to analyze the beauty. He had no mental reservation with regard to her. Indeed it would have been hard to find fault with Etta Sydney Bamborough, looking upon her merely as a beautiful woman, exquisitely dressed. In a cynical age this man was without cynicism. He did not dream of reflecting that the lovely hair owed half its beauty to the clever handling of a maid, that the perfect dress had been the all-absorbing topic of many of its wearer’s leisure hours. He was, in fact, young for his years, and what is youth but a happy ignorance? It is only when we know too much that Gravity marks us for her own.
Mrs. Sydney Bamborough looked up at him with a certain admiration. This man was like a mountain breeze to one who has breathed nothing but the faded air of drawing-rooms.
She drew in her
