Tall, slender, graceful, strong—for strength alone bestows such easy perfection of movement, such equipoise of step as belonged to him—with a fine, clear-cut face and well-shaped head, nobly placed on his straight, square shoulders—wide for a man so slight—dark eyed, dark haired, with a mouth somewhat concealed by a long silken mustache, then an unusual coxcombry in our republic, yet revealing in glimpses superb teeth and the curve of accurately-cut lips, Claude Bainrothe stood before me, a young Apollo.
"I have brought my son here to-night, expressly to introduce him to you, Miriam, of whom he has heard so much."
He bowed low and silently, then tossed his curled head suddenly back again.
"We have met before, I believe, Mr. Bainrothe," I observed, when his eye rose to meet mine. "You were good enough to restore me my shawl and clasp last night at the opera, if I am not strangely mistaken."
"Ah! were you that lady?" he asked, with a slight yet somewhat embarrassed laugh. "Forgive me, if in the confusion of the moment I failed to remark your appearance. I only knew an outrage had been committed, and naturally sought to repair it."
"Now, that was really romantic," said Evelyn, who had caught the idea. "Miriam related her adventure, but was sorely puzzled to know to whom she was indebted for such chivalrous aid."
"I am glad to have been of service to Miss Monfort," he rejoined, deferentially, "but I merely obeyed an impulse strong with me. I should have been wanting to myself to have done otherwise than defend a helpless woman."
"There could not have been a more favorable opening to your acquaintance, certainly," observed Evelyn significantly; then, turning away and crossing the apartment, she applied herself to the entertainment of the elder Mr. Bainrothe, "Mr. Basil," as we called him after his son came, by way of distinction between the two, since the word "old" seemed invidious in his case, and we characterized them as we would have done two brothers.
Indeed, in manner, in bearing, in something of quiet repose entirely wanting in the father, and which usually seems the accompaniment of age or experience, the son seemed the elder man of the two. I had yet to learn that there is an experience so perfect and subtle that it assumes the air of ignorance, and triumphs in its simplicity over inferior craft itself.
When the mind has worked out the problems of life to its own satisfaction, like the school-boy who has proved his sums, it wipes the slate clean again and sets down the bare result—the laborious process it effaces. All is simplified.