She seemed to
heave a sigh of relief when he once more moved on. Yet he had impressed
her agreeably.
"Is he not handsome?" she said in an undertone to her companion, Stafford.
"I think he is quite the handsomest man I have seen, and he has the
manners of an Englishman. I wonder where he got them from."
"I don't know," Stafford returned. "These people have a wonderful trick of
picking up things. At any rate he realizes Miss Cary's curious
description--beautiful; though, with Miss Berry, I do not care for the
word as applied to a man. He seems a nice sort of fellow, too, quiet and
unaffected, and that is more to me than his good looks. It's rather a
pity."
"What is a pity?" she asked, surprised.
"Oh, well, that he is what he is. Don't look so pained. It's not only my
'narrow-hearted prejudice,' as you call it. It's more than that. I'm sorry
for the man himself. It all confirms my first opinion that it is rather
bad luck."
"Why?" she demanded obstinately.
"Don't you understand? If you had seen Webb's face when he talked about
'as a brother a brother,' you would have understood well enough. He has
been made a fool of, and sooner or later he will have his eyes roughly
opened. As I say, it seems bad luck."
"You mean he would have done better to keep to his old seclusion?" she
said thoughtfully.
"That's about it." He smiled down at her, and they suddenly forgot the
Rajah in that curious happiness of two beings who need no words to tell
them that each is understood by the other, and that a secret current of
thought and feeling flows beneath every word and touch.
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