Arthur looked at him, his brows bent moodily.
Gus said nothing, but thought to himself; “Well, here is a pair of them!” As they were walking slowly homeward, through the level glow of the sunset, a woman brushed past them; she lifted her face to look at Wilbur, a look in which hate mingled strangely with love. Her eyes were like midnight, but a midnight lighted by a reddish glow, the reflection of the fires within; inky black brows, and hair of the same shade falling low on a forehead as colorless as marble. A face to glow with the fiercest abandonment of love, or burn with the seething fires of hate; her form was of voluptuous beauty, a something strange and foreign in the ensemble.
Arthur stopped abruptly, giving vent to a strange, fierce cry:
“Andalusia! Andalusia!” The sound was like the voice of one in anguish. She swept him a burning glance, to which he replied in a strange language, gesticulating rapidly; with a look of wild amazement she passed on, and was lost to sight around a street corner.
Gus looked his displeasure: “I would not stop to talk with one of that kind on the street; who is she?”
Arthur looked at him as though he did not understand, but when the question was repeated, he replied absently:
“No; no; I must have been mistaken!”
Gus of course thought that he was telling an untruth; he judged her some disreputable woman of Arthur’s acquaintance. “Oh, it is all right, I do not blame you for being ashamed of it!” he answered sarcastically.
Arthur shot him a look of hatred from under moody brows, but made no reply. Wilbur seemed feverishly eager to reach their destination, and in preoccupied thought had hurried forward until he was considerably in advance of the others, consequently observed nothing.
When Gus introduced Wilbur to Edith, he blushed and stammered awkwardly; she was no less embarrassed. Throughout the whole evening Wilbur scarcely took his eyes from her face; once, inadvertently, he called her Edith; she blushed furiously, and Gus gave him a look of displeasure, which he did not observe.