In silence he led her into the salon. As he did so, a certain noble lady, an old schoolfellow of his mother, who was sitting beside her, looked up at them, then turned to the signora.
"This is a very beautiful girl, signora!"
The old lady glanced at Margaret and smiled placidly.
"Miss Leslie?—yes."
"Very," said the countess. "There is something sad and spirituelle about her which renders her loveliness something higher than the ordinary beauty of which one sees so much nowadays."
"Yes," said the signora. "I fear she has passed through some great sorrow. There is a look in her eyes when she is silent and thinking, which makes one tempted to get up and kiss her."
"A dangerous charm, that," remarked the countess dryly.
"A charm; yes, that is the word," assented the signora, smiling. "She has charmed the heart out of Florence, and has crept into mine, poor girl."
"Poor girl!" echoed the countess, dryly; then, as it seemed abruptly and inconsequentially, she said, "How handsome Ferdinand has grown!"
The signora let her eyes linger upon him with all a mother's pride and tenderness.