Lord Selvaine leaned back and sipped his whisky and soda, and smoked delicately.
“Nice evening, Traff?” he said.
Lord Trafford leaned against the mantel-piece and looked absently at the smoke from his cigarette.
“Yes; oh, yes! Lady Blankyre’s parties are always successful. Does that cigarette suit you, or will you have a Turkish?”
“Quite satisfactory, thanks,” said Lord Selvaine. “Delightful evening! But I was particularly lucky, for I spent a great portion of it with Miss Chetwynde.” He knocked the ashes from his cigarette, and nestled still closer in the luxurious chair. “What a wonderful girl! Really, my dear boy, I have never seen a more beautiful woman! Those eyes of hers are—are a revelation! And her hair! Titian and Murillo, to say nothing of Burne-Jones!”
“She is very beautiful,” said Lord Trafford, absently.
“She is lovely!” exclaimed Lord Selvaine, softly. “And she is as charming as she is beautiful. Such innocence and—and freshness! I declare to you that if I were a marrying man, and, say, a trifle of twenty years younger, I should be in love with her. By Jove! I am in love with her as it is!”
Trafford smiled.
“Where is there a woman who can compare with her?” demanded Lord Selvaine in the same soft voice, and looking, not at his nephew, but at the smoke which rose from his own cigarette. “I grant you that she is—well, rather green, but it is the green of the lily, the freshness of the mountain ash, which will wear off, alas! before the season has passed.”