'Ah I perhaps for a "nearer one still, and a dearer"?'
'Yes; if he has to sail the salt dividing seas, and go to strange countries, and kill lions like enclosed birds, etc.'
'But why these hard conditions?'
'Oh, just the power of association. Don't you know the way girls have of hanging a man in a cosy nook in their own rooms—a bearded, sun-burnt being, who is away exploring, or in the Northern Territory, or pearling, or gold-digging, or taking stock across an unknown tract of the Continent? There the pictures are so safe and snug, with white everlasting flowers round them, while the men themselves—goodness only knows what they are doing, or what is happening to them in the wilds.'
Stella wreathed a few more immortelles into places less thickly covered, and then held the wreath at a little distance to judge it more critically.
'Yes, that will do; it is worthy to surround the picture even of the unknown one,' she said, with a dawning smile.
'Stella, will you think me inquisitive? Tell me all there is to tell about your unknown partner at the Emberly ball. I have heard broken hints and laughing allusions from Alice,' said Esther, regarding her sister narrowly.
'It is only Alice's idea of a joke,' said Stella, but she coloured slowly. 'There is not much to tell, but I will tell you. Shortly after the ball began Mrs. Leslie came up to me just after a dance, saying, "There is a friend of my husband's, a stranger here, who wishes to be introduced." Some woman seized upon her at the moment to ask a score of questions about the Leslies' departure for Europe. They were going, you know, the very next day. Then Mrs. Leslie tore herself away and led the stranger to me, and all I heard was, "Miss Stella," and I think, perhaps, "Doctor——"; but I am not sure, and I rather hoped I did not hear aright.'
'But why?'
'Well, it is very stupid; but this stranger had what you might call a distinguished air, with a noble brow, and a look as of one dissociated from the vulgar tide of life.'