Frank wondered if she could be thinking of the desperate fellow who had twice assaulted him.
As they entered the brilliantly lighted room and followed the waiter who preceded them to a table, Frank suddenly caught a full-length reflection of his companion in a mirror. All in a twinkling he knew she was wondrously beautiful and striking in appearance. Before that he had known she was pretty, even beautiful, but not till that moment had he realized the full extent of her beauty. She had a carriage that was graceful and queenly, a figure that Venus herself might envy, a finely shaped head, an abundance of dark hair and a complexion that all the arts of make-up could not imitate.
Frank saw some of the people at the tables turn to look at Hilda, the men admiringly, the women not without a show of envy.
When they were seated they fell to chatting again.
“It’s all so strange,” said the girl. “My last memory of you is as I saw you walking down that old wood road and vanishing into the forest. I thought it probable we might never meet again.”
“This world is very small, after all,” he said. “They say no one realizes this so well as a person who has done a wrong act and tries to get away somewhere where no one will know about it or ever hear that it happened.”
Again he fancied that she showed signs of confusion and distress, and he wondered if he had touched upon an unpleasant point. He hastened to continue:
“Our first meeting was under most singular circumstances. You remember how your little dog fell overboard from the steamer. You cried out for Jones to jump for it, and, when he hesitated, you sprang in yourself.”
“I remember,” she laughed, showing her fine teeth, surrounded by those curving red lips. “I also remember that Huck Jones did not jump in and get himself wet even then.”
“No; he seemed afraid to spoil his ministerial clothes.”