"You refer to the resemblance?"
"Yes; it is hardly that, however."
"I have thought very little about it lately. It troubled me terribly for a while."
"Well, good-night, Julian," said Lawton, rising. "If there are to be any orange-blossoms, I suppose I am best man."
Two days later, when Eva Delorme came to the studio, the artist thought he had never seen her so beautiful.
And now the whiteness of his own soul was turned to view. He resembled as little the man who had trembled before Evelin March, as Evelin March was like this beautiful being before him.
With all the ardor and fervid eloquence of his nature he urged his suit; and she, tearful and trembling before him, half consented. He caught her to his breast and covered her face with kisses.
"My darling—my darling," he murmured, "we will leave this smoky, dingy city; I will take you to a beautiful land where the flowers never fade and the air is forever filled with their fragrance. Where the blue skies of an eternal summer are above us, and the blue waves of a whispering sea shall lull us to peace. There is a tiny island in the Mediterranean on the coast of France. I was there once; it is like heaven. I will take you there. Say that you will go, sweetheart; we will start to-day."
The girl lifted her face to his, and kissed him on the forehead.