"Better take off your hat," he said. "It keeps off all the light."
She turned over the pages of the book he gave her, pleased to see that it had a great many pictures, and began dutifully to read. In spite of herself she became interested.
It was the third volume of a series, "Magnificent Women of the Past," and it contained sketches of the lives of the Empress Josephine, Mme. du Barry, Mme. de Montespan, Mary Stuart, Lady Hamilton, and many others. It was sensational, impossible stuff; but Angelica was neither a well-informed nor a discriminating reader. She was enthralled by this description of courts, of gallantry, of balls, fêtes, and levées, of kings, emperors, and princes; above all, by the radiant women who ruled over this amazing world.
She went on, page after page, stopping only to study the portraits of the dazzling beauties. She had never imagined anything like this. Of course, she had studied what was called history in the public school, but that was entirely concerned with battles and treaties; not a word of woman, except, very rarely, an entirely respectable heroine. She had thought of kings and queens as rather dull and solemn persons, also concerned with battles and treaties. She had never conceived of such a passionate and colourful and exciting life as was revealed in this book. It was a life unfortunately impossible in this actual world.
She came to the end of the life of Mme. de Montespan as imagined by the author, and closed the book, the better to reflect upon it. She sighed; she was disturbed by dim longings for an existence of this sort. She was full of dissatisfaction and preposterous ambitions. She was so immersed in the scenes of court life and in the pictures her imagination created that it was almost a shock to see Mr. Eddie sitting there in front of her, still working.
She stared at him thoughtfully. A nice-looking boy—perhaps something more than that. His face was boyish, but in no way weak; the features were all good, fine, firm, regular. She fancied—still dreaming of what she had been reading—that he looked like a young prince, that there was something in his brow, in his presence, that was noble.
Her glance wandered round his room. It was austere, handsome, immaculately neat. She liked it; it was manly.
Her roving attention had distracted Mr. Eddie. He looked up, frowned, and leaned back in his chair.
"Well?" he asked.