“Miss Grace, do you remember what I said once of honest admiration—that if it were eloquent it would be irresistible?”
Grace Plumer bows an assent.
“But that its mere consciousness—a sort of silent eloquence—is pure happiness to him who feels it?”
She thinks she remembers that too, although the Prince apparently forgets that he never said it to her before.
“Well, Miss Plumer, it seems to me the serene sweetness of that picture is the expression of the perfect happiness of entire admiration—that is to say, of love; whoever loves is like those cherubs—perfectly happy.”
He looks attentively at the picture, as if he had forgotten his own existence in the happiness of the cherubs. Grace Plumer glances at him for a few moments with a peculiar expression. It is full of admiration, but it is not the look with which she would say, as she just now said to Sligo Moultrie, “You always speak sincerely.”
She is still looking at the Prince, when Mr. Moultrie begins again:
“I ought to be allowed to explain that I only meant that as a cage is a home, so it is often used as a snare. Do you know, Miss Grace, that the prettiest birds are often put into the prettiest cages to entice other birds? By-the-by, how lovely Laura Magot is this evening!”
He cuts a small piece of the peach with his silver knife and puts it into his mouth,
“Peaches are luxuries in June,” he says, quietly.