"Shall I intrude?" The voice is soft, with a half-entreaty almost as beguiling as Cecil's.
"Indeed, no." There is something wistful in her face, and he gives a graceful invitation with his hand to a seat beside him. She is so royally beautiful this morning, with her fresh, clear skin, the rose-tint on her cheek, her deep, dewy eyes, that still have a slumbrous light in them, the exquisite turn of the throat, and the alluring smile.
"Do you know," she begins, in the seductive tone to which one can but choose to listen,—"do you know that if you had not the burden of Atlas upon your shoulders, I should feel tempted to add just a very little to a smaller burthen."
"My shoulders are broad, you see," and he laughs with an unusual lightness. Somehow he feels happy this morning, as if it was to be a fortunate day. "You have been so kind to Laura, that if we could do anything in return——"
"Oh, women take naturally to weddings, you know! And Laura is such a sweet girl, but so young! I seem ages older. And, shall I come to the point,—I want to establish myself. I cannot always be accepting the hospitality of my dearest friends, and I have a longing for a home. You see American ways have spoiled me already." And she raises her deep, languorous eyes.
"A home?"
"Yes." She laughs a little now. "And I need some sort of banking arrangement, as well as security for valuable papers. I am quite a stranger, you know, and have no relatives."
"Well, you must take us," he answers, in a frank way. "You do not mean a home quite by yourself?"
"Why not? I am tired of hotels and rooms. I want a pretty place, with some congenial friend, where I can call together choice spirits, musical, literary, and artistic, where I can be gay or quiet, read the livelong day if I like." And she smiles again, with an enchanting grace. "I suppose New York would be better for winter. I should have dear Laura to commence with, and not feel quite so lonely. You see, now, I really do want to be anchored to some sort of steadfastness, to do something with my life and my means, even if it is only making a pretty and congenial place in the world where some tired wayfarer may come in and rest. We are so prodigal in youth," and she sighs with seductive regret, while her beautiful eyes droop; "we scatter or throw away the pearls offered us, and later we are glad to go over the way and gather them up, if haply no other traveller has been before us."
He is thinking,—not of the past, as she hopes,—but of her gifts for making an elegant home. His sisters seem crude and untrained beside her. He can imagine such a lovely place with her in the centre, the Old World refinement grafted on the new vigor and earnest purpose.