“The Spanish women go to bull-fights, but I never heard that they stepped down into, the arena. She has great courage,—very great courage.”
“Who was the handsome woman with her?”
“Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sewell. Now, that is what I call beauty, Haire. There is the element which is denied to us men,—to subdue without effort, to conquer without conflict.”
“Your granddaughter is handsomer, to my thinking.”
“They are like each other,—strangely like. They have the same dimpling of the cheek before they smile, and her laugh has the same ring as Lucy's.”
Haire muttered something, not very intelligibly, indeed, but certainly not sounding like assent.
“Lady Lendrick had asked me to take these Sewells in at the Priory, and I refused her. Perhaps I 'd have been less peremptory had I seen this beauty. Yes, sir! There is a form of loveliness—this woman has it—as distinctly an influence as intellectual superiority, or great rank, or great riches. To deny its power you must live out of the world, and reject all the ordinances of society.”
“Coquettes, I suppose, have their followers; but I don't think you or I need be of the number.”
“You speak with your accustomed acuteness, Haire; but coquetry is the exercise of many gifts, beauty is the display of one. I can parry off the one; I cannot help feeling the burning rays of the other. Come, come, don't sulk; I am not going to undervalue your favorite Lucy. They have promised to dine with me on Sunday; you must meet them.”
“Dine with you!—dine with you, after what you said today in open court!”