"Stunning, isn't she, Mrs. Routh? I beg your pardon for the slang, but there is really no other word. Blinding, dazzling, and all the rest of it."
"Stunning, certainly, George," said Harriet, smiling; "but, somehow, I don't think you care particularly to be stunned."
"Not in the least. She is not a bit my style;" and George, thinking of what "his" style was, and how widely it differed from the triumphant figure in the ornate carriage out there, let the muslin curtain drop, and turned away from the window. Harriet sat down and took up her work.
"A woman whom men would love for a little while, and hate bitterly after, I fancy; but whom women would hate at once, and always."
Mrs. Ireton P. Bembridge had not found among the loungers in the town the individual whom her bright black eyes were seeking, when George Dallas and Harriet Routh had marked her from the window. She had driven rapidly away past the gardens and the Schloss, and when fully two miles outside the town she overtook a gentleman sauntering leisurely along, with his hands thrust deep into his pockets, and his moody eyes fixed upon the ground. The carriage was close upon him before he looked round, though the sound made by the wheels and the trotting horses had been distinct in the clear air, as they came along the empty road. Then he turned and greeted the lady with effusion. In a moment he had taken his place beside her, and was whirled away into the green and golden distance of the forest, under the brow-crest of Taunus.
"How very odd that you should know him," said the gorgeous lady of the pony-carriage to the gentleman seated beside her, as she walked her ponies along a shady road, where the slim trees stood on guard on either side, and the fallen leaves rustled under the wheels.
"Not so very odd. He is a near relative of one of my most intimate friends."
"Ah, his nephew, I suppose you mean, a tall young man with good eyes, and a remarkably rich expression of countenance."
"I recognize the description certainly, and it is not flattering. That is the individual; his name is Dallas."
"A booby, I'm convinced. How he can be an intimate friend of yours I cannot understand."