We were walking about among the flower-beds after tea, and Mr. MacNairn was showing me a cloud of blue larkspurs in a corner when I saw something which made me turn toward him rather quickly.
“There is one!” I said. “Do look at her! Now you see what I mean! The girl standing with her hand on Mr. Le Breton’s arm.”
Mr. Le Breton was the brilliant man with the sad eyes. He was standing looking at a mass of white-and-purple iris at the other side of the garden. There were two or three people with him, but it seemed as if for a moment he had forgotten them—had forgotten where he was. I wondered suddenly if his daughter had been fond of irises. He was looking at them with such a tender, lost expression. The girl, who was a lovely, fair thing, was standing quite close to him with her hand in his arm, and she was smiling, too—such a smile!
“Mr. Le Breton!” Mr. MacNairn said in a rather startled tone. “The girl with her hand in his arm?”
“Yes. You see how fair she is,” I answered.
“And she has that transparent look. It is so lovely. Don’t you think so? SHE is one of the White People.”
He stood very still, looking across the flowers at the group. There was a singular interest and intensity in his expression. He watched the pair silently for a whole minute, I think.
“Ye-es,” he said, slowly, at last, “I do see what you mean—and it IS lovely. I don’t seem to know her well. She must be a new friend of my mother’s. So she is one of the White People?”
“She looks like a white iris herself, doesn’t she?” I said. “Now you know.”
“Yes; now I know,” he answered.