“I know Lois will never be the one to love when she is ordered to dispose of her affections,” she said, very quietly. “And I am perfectly convinced she will never marry any one whom she does not love.”
A most wonderfully indiscreet question—one which he knew Lady Quaintree would not answer, but which he longed to ask, nevertheless—trembled on the lips of the young lawyer, yet he could not form the necessary words. He was about to ask:
“Do you think she cares for any one at present?” But Lady Quaintree was called away before he could muster sufficient presence of mind even to debate with himself whether it were possible to as much as hint such a query.
Lois’ opinion of Paul Desfrayne, gathered from those fugitive glances, was that she could never like him even as a friend. He seemed so cold, so self-absorbed, so haughty, that her sense of antagonism deepened. The strange, bewildering sense of magnetic attraction which had fallen upon her during the first few moments of their unexpected meeting had faded away, to be replaced by a firmly rooted conviction that she could never entertain even the mildest liking for this almost stern, melancholy looking guardian.
Paul Desfrayne’s idea of Lois—at whom he had, indeed, hardly glanced at all—was that, while beautiful as a statue, she was as icy as if carved from marble.
Deeper and darker grew the cloud upon the young man’s brow; and at length, finding a favorable chance to escape unseen, he quitted the softly illumined drawing-room, wherein he had deemed himself a prisoner; and with a slow step he descended the wide, richly carpeted staircase, revolving thoughts evidently not too pleasing.
He had just reached the bottom of the stairs when a figure, radiant as Venus herself, alighted from a brougham at the door, and swept over the threshold, in all the pride and glory of the most brilliant and latest Parisian toilet.
It was the woman who had been sitting in the balcony in Porchester Square the previous evening, when the weary pedestrian had stopped Captain Desfrayne, and implored his pity.
Almost at the moment when she alighted, she was met by a young man, who was about to enter the mansion.
This young man was Lady Quaintree’s only son—a fair, slender, rather foppish young fellow, with a pale, interesting face, and a pretty, graceful figure.