And she was lovelier even than he had imagined, with a face in which all fine issues of thought and feeling seemed to meet. She looked surprised, yet the gentle, curving lips smiled as it were irresistibly, while she said, with the composure of a woman of the world, “I recollect Mr. Kyrle perfectly, though I should not have known him.”
“Nor I you,” Lennox answered, bowing deeply. “But I have never forgotten you.”
It did not occur to him until after the words were spoken what a lover-like sound they might have to any one under that false impression which he had just resented. But when he lifted his head it was to meet a pair of eyes which at once enlightened him with regard to the interpretation of which they were susceptible. These eyes belonged to the young man whom he had already seen on the balcony, and whom Mrs. Meredith now introduced as Mr. Joscelyn.
Percy Joscelyn had not forgotten the man whom he found with Aimée on the momentous occasion when he went to announce the great change in her fortunes, and he instantly identified this bronzed stranger as that man, even before hearing the name which he had taken care to remember. It was therefore natural enough that his eyes should express suspicion and dislike when Lennox met them.
But this immediate proof of Fanny’s assertion, that he would be regarded as “Aimée’s former lover,” did not irritate Kyrle as might have been expected. On the contrary, he was conscious of a sense of amusement which he would not have believed possible a moment earlier. It was the appearance of Joscelyn which wrought this change. A few minutes before he had, unconsciously to himself, envied this man; now he was transformed into an object if not of envy, at least of apprehension to the latter. It was impossible not to feel that the situation had its elements of interest. He looked at the beautiful girl standing before him, a smile still on her lips, but her gentle, high-bred composure otherwise unchanged, and felt that, after all, the suspicion of having been her lover was one which he could cheerfully support.
Aimée, on her part, regarding him with the deep, soft eyes he remembered well, was thinking of the sea wall, the star-lighted tide, and the young lover who had taken his disappointment with such fiery disdain. There rose before her, too, a memory of the orange grove at sunset, and the generous anger which had burned there for her rather than for himself. She knew well that most men in his place would have given scant thought at such a time to any one so insignificant as she had been, and therefore, remembering his deep concern for the false position in which she was placed, she had held Lennox Kyrle in grateful remembrance during all the years since their one day of brief acquaintance.
Yet it was characteristic of the woman, as it had been characteristic of the girl, to forget herself for others; and so at this moment she was thinking less of herself and her own singular connection with that past story, than of the two before her, who had been lovers once and now were strangers. She was wondering how they felt on meeting again face to face, and how much or how little the memory of the past thrilled them. Fanny she knew too well to expect any depth of feeling from her; but how was it with Lennox Kyrle?
Meanwhile, amid all these memories, it was necessary that some one should sustain conversation with the usual commonplaces; and of this Mrs. Meredith was fortunately fully capable.
“I was never more surprised than when I looked up and saw Mr. Kyrle a few minutes ago,” she said to Aimée. “And yet there was really no reason to be surprised at all.”
“Not in these days, when everybody goes everywhere,” said Lennox, “and the acquaintance one parted with in Europe yesterday, one meets to-morrow in China. Especially a wanderer like myself may be met anywhere.”