He smiled, amused at the startled look in her gazelle eyes.
“You have the advantage of me, princess,” he said. “I do not think I have had the honour of meeting you before to-night. And yet——”
He was puzzled. Looking at her steadily, there was something in the wistful, childish beauty of Mercedes’ oval face which was familiar. She had some resemblance to someone he had seen somewhere. But, even as he ransacked his memory, the likeness eluded him, as a forgotten name will refuse to repeat itself when the thinker struggles to recall it.
“You two had better talk over your previous acquaintance behind the curtain, I think,” said Lady Forwood.
Hugh took the hint. He drew his chair nearer to the princess, and asked her where they possibly could have met, while Lady Forwood became absorbed in the performance.
“You have been much in England; anyone can tell that who hears you speak,” he said. “But have you been in London?”
“Never, till now,” said Mercedes, still scrutinising him with a feeling of uneasiness, for she felt that this worn-looking but attractive man, with the prematurely white hair, was no stranger to her, yet she could not recall how or when she had seen him. “I have lived seven—no, eight years in the convent at B——. That is where mammy and I were together” (with an affectionate look towards her friend); “but to London I came—not—once! When I returned to Spain, we went by Newhaven. This is the first time I see—London.”
“Curious!” said Hugh, half to himself.
The resemblance to someone he had known was stronger while she was speaking, and yet there was nothing definite about it. It stirred him strangely; but what the emotion was which disturbed him and quickened his ordinarily sluggish pulses, he could not tell.
“Were you ever in Surrey?” he suggested, after a few minutes’ fruitless mental searching.