“Not a word about it. I am delighted to have you under my roof,” and he led him into a cosy sitting-room, where a young lady was sitting at work.
“Let me introduce you to my sister, Captain Tournier. Oh, but you must not be so formal, dear Alice, in your welcome to my friend. I have been expecting him too long for that. Give him your hand.”
And she did so in the prettiest way imaginable, with all the simple grace of true kindness of heart.
The effect on Tournier was reviving. It reminded him of happy days gone by, which he never thought to see again.
Alice Cosin was a girl worth looking at. And the gallant captain could not refrain from doing so whenever it was possible without rudeness. And if his true love, in France, had been watching him, she would have found no fault, if
her love were as true as his. A jealous woman is a distrustful one; and a man who makes his own love first will always keep her first, however he may admire another. So it was, at all events, with Tournier.
And how shall we describe the young lady? It shall be done briefly. She was not what connoisseurs would call a beauty. Her features were not altogether regular enough for that, and very regular features are rather of the dutch-doll type of beauty. But her open brow looked honesty itself, while a slightly aquiline nose betokened force of character of the true feminine type. The eyes, however, formed the great attraction in her face. You were struck by them at once. True blue eyes, not washed out, not milk and water, but grey-blue eyes, like “the body of heaven in its clearness:” yet with a glint in them, as if they could flash under just provocation.
They spent a pleasant afternoon together, Cosin doing all he could to divert and amuse
his friend, and his sister helping him: for they were cheerful souls, though Tournier thought he saw at times a vein of sadness in his host, amid all his cheerfulness, which, they say, and say truly, always adds piquancy to mirth.
A message was brought to Cosin that required him to quit the room, and Alice and Tournier were left alone.