Dear Princess di Miramare,
I don't ask if you remember me. I know you do, because of one we have both greatly loved. I meant to thank you long ago for the kind things you took the trouble to say about my verses. The thoughts your name called up were very poignant. I put off acknowledging your note. But you will forgive me, because you are a real friend; and for that reason I venture to send you a strong personal recommendation with Miss Joyce Arnold, who will ask for a position as your secretary. I saw your advertisement in the Times, and showed it to Miss Arnold, offering to introduce her to you. She nursed me in France when she was a V. A. D. (she has a decoration, bye the bye, for her courage in hideous air raids), and she has been my secretary for some months. All I need say about her I can put into a few words. She is absolutely perfect. It will be a great wrench for me to lose her valuable help with the work I give my time to nowadays, but I am going abroad for a while, and shall not need a secretary.
You too have lived and suffered since we met! Do take from me remembrances and thoughts of a friendship which will never fade.
Yours sincerely always,
Robert Lorillard.
I'd been too much excited when she said, "I have an introduction to you from Captain Lorillard," to do more than glance at the girl, and ask her to sit down. But as I finished the letter I looked up, to meet the gaze of a pair of gray eyes.
Caught staring, Miss Arnold blushed; and what with those eyes and that colour I thought her one of the most delightful girls I'd ever seen.
I don't mean that she was one of the prettiest. She was (and is) pretty. But it wasn't entirely her looks you thought of, in seeing her first. It was something that shone out from her eyes, and seemed to make a sweet, happy brightness all around her. Eyes are windows, and something must be on the other side, but, alas! it seldom shines through. The windows are dim, or the blinds are down to cover dulness. Joyce Arnold had a living spirit behind those big, bright soul-windows that were her eyes!
As for the rest, she was tall and slim, and delicately long-limbed. She had milk-white skin with a soft touch of rose on the cheek bones; a few freckles which were like the dust from tiger-lily petals, and a charming, sensitive mouth, full and red.
"Why, of course I want you!" I said. "I'm lucky to secure you, too! How glad I am that you didn't come after I'd engaged someone else! But even if you had, I'd have managed to get rid of her one way or other."
Miss Arnold smiled. She had the most contagious smile!—though it struck me even then that it wasn't a merry smile. Her face, with its piquant little nose, was meant to be gay and happy I thought; yet it wasn't either. It was more plucky and brave; and the eyes had known sadness, I felt sure. I guessed her age as twenty-three or twenty-four.
She said that she would love to work for me. The girls who were waiting to be interviewed were sent politely away in search of other engagements while I settled things with Miss Arnold. The more I looked at her, the more I talked with her, the more definite became an impression that I'd seen her before—a long time ago. At last I asked her the question: "Can it be that we've met somewhere?"
Colour streamed over her pale face. "Yes, Princess, we have," she said. "At least, we didn't exactly meet. It couldn't be called that."
"What was it then, if not a meeting?" I encouraged her.