"I think she must mean Miss Falconer--Miss Maude Falconer," said
Stafford, as indifferently as before, as he smoothed one of the silken
tresses on her brow, and kissed it as it lay on his finger. "It is just
the way a slave would describe her."
"And is she very beautiful?" asked Ida.
"Yes, I suppose she is," he said.
"You suppose!" she echoed, arching her brows, but with a frank smile
about her lips, the smile of contentment at his indifference. "Don't
you know?"
"Well, yes, she is," he admitted. "I've scarcely noticed her. Oh, but
yes, she is; and she sings very well. Yes, I can understand her making
a sensation in the servants' hall--she makes one in the drawing-room.
But she's not my style of beauty. See here, dearest: it doesn't sound
nice, but though I've spent some hours with Miss Falconer and listened
to her singing, I have only just noticed that she is good-looking, and
that she has a wonderful voice: they say up at the Villa that there's
nothing like it on the stage--excepting Patti's and Melba's; but all
the time she has been there I have had another face, another voice, in
my mind. Ever since I saw you, down there by the river, I have had no
eyes for any other woman's face, however beautiful, no ears for any
other woman's voice, however sweet." She was silent a moment, as she
clasped her hands and laid them against his cheek.
"How strange it sounds! But if you had chanced to see her
first--perhaps you would not have fallen in love with me? How could you
have done so? She is so very lovely--I can see she is, by Jessie's
description."
He laughed.
"Even if I had not seen you, there was no chance of my falling in love
with Miss Falconer, dearest," he said, smiling at her gravity and
earnestness. "She is very beautiful, lovely in her way, if you like;
but it is not my way. She is like a statue at most times; at others,
just now and again, like a--well, a sleek tigress in her movements and
the way she turns her head. Oh, there wasn't the least danger of my
falling in love with her, even if I hadn't seen the sweetest and
loveliest girl in all the wide world."
"And you will feel like that, feel so sure, so certain that you love
me, even though you have seen and will see so many women who are far
more beautiful than I am?" she said, dreamily.