"I think she must mean Miss Falconer—Miss Maude Falconer," said Stafford, as indifferently as before, as he smoothed one of the silken tresses on her brow, and kissed it as it lay on his finger. "It is just the way a slave would describe her."
"And is she very beautiful?" asked Ida.
"Yes, I suppose she is," he said.
"You suppose!" she echoed, arching her brows, but with a frank smile about her lips, the smile of contentment at his indifference. "Don't you know?"
"Well, yes, she is," he admitted. "I've scarcely noticed her. Oh, but yes, she is; and she sings very well. Yes, I can understand her making a sensation in the servants' hall—she makes one in the drawing-room. But she's not my style of beauty. See here, dearest: it doesn't sound nice, but though I've spent some hours with Miss Falconer and listened to her singing, I have only just noticed that she is good-looking, and that she has a wonderful voice: they say up at the Villa that there's nothing like it on the stage—excepting Patti's and Melba's; but all the time she has been there I have had another face, another voice, in my mind. Ever since I saw you, down there by the river, I have had no eyes for any other woman's face, however beautiful, no ears for any other woman's voice, however sweet." She was silent a moment, as she clasped her hands and laid them against his cheek.
"How strange it sounds! But if you had chanced to see her first—perhaps you would not have fallen in love with me? How could you have done so? She is so very lovely—I can see she is, by Jessie's description."
He laughed.
"Even if I had not seen you, there was no chance of my falling in love with Miss Falconer, dearest," he said, smiling at her gravity and earnestness. "She is very beautiful, lovely in her way, if you like; but it is not my way. She is like a statue at most times; at others, just now and again, like a—well, a sleek tigress in her movements and the way she turns her head. Oh, there wasn't the least danger of my falling in love with her, even if I hadn't seen the sweetest and loveliest girl in all the wide world."
"And you will feel like that, feel so sure, so certain that you love me, even though you have seen and will see so many women who are far more beautiful than I am?" she said, dreamily.
"Sure and certain," he responded, with a long sigh. "If I were as sure of your love as I am of mine for you—Forgive me, dearest!" for she had raised her eyes to his with an earnestness that was almost solemn.