"Uncle Hiram—John Elton Cecil Gwynne! What a likeness and what a difference!"
The young Englishman's hair, pale in color and very smooth, was worn longer than the fashion, the ends lilting. As he turned slowly at the rustle of descending skirts, this eccentricity and his colorless skin made him look the pale student rather than the gallant soldier, the best fighter on the hustings that England had seen for five-and-twenty years. As Isabel walked carefully down the slippery stair she veiled her eyes to hide the wonder in them. She had expected personality, magnetism, as a compensation for nature's external economies. His apparent lack of both made him almost repellent, awakened in Isabel a sensation of antagonism; and the cool speculation in his light gray eyes merely accentuated his general dearth of charm. True he had height—although his carriage was unimposing—his head was large and well-proportioned, his nose and chin salient, but the straight heavy mouth was as contemptuous as a Prussian officer's, and in spite of his grooming he looked old-fashioned, absurdly like the Uncle Hiram who had been a country lawyer and farmer, and had always worn broadcloth in the hottest weather—except, to be sure, when he wore a linen "duster," or sat on the veranda in his shirt-sleeves, his feet on the railing.
However, she smiled, and he smiled politely in return, advancing a few steps to meet her. "I hope you have heard of me," she said. "Your mother is so busy—English people are so indifferent to details—I am your cousin, Isabel Otis—"
"Of course my mother has spoken of you. I am very glad to see you in my house," he added, hospitably. "Shall I show you the way?"
He made no further remark as they descended the darker section of the stair, and she could think of nothing to say to him. Nor did she particularly care to think of anything, the American in her resenting his lack of effort. But as they reached the door she paused abruptly.
"I forgot! Miss Thangue asked me to knock at her door—"
"You take us too seriously," he said, with a slight sneer. "Flora has evidently forgotten you; she came down a quarter of an hour ago."
Isabel lifted her head still higher, annoyed at the angry blood that leaped to her face. "I am afraid I am rather literal," she said, with more hauteur than the occasion demanded. "But perhaps you will tell me where to go. There seems to be a bewildering number of rooms. After three years of lodgings in Europe, to say nothing of the modest architecture of Rosewater, I feel as if astray in a maze."
"You got that off as if you were a masquerading princess," he said, with a flicker of humor in his eyes. "Americans generally bluff the other way." He opened the door. "We meet here in the hall. There is my mother. You are not obliged to speak to her, you know. We are less formal in life than in novels." With this parting shot he left her abruptly and joined a small dark woman with a plebeian face, a sensual mouth, and magnificent black eyes.
"The rude beast!—Julia Kaye, of course." But Isabel forgot them both in the novelty of the scene. The square white hall was lit with wax-candles and shaded lamps, and filled with the murmur of voices—beautiful gowns—the sparkle of jewels. Isabel dismissed the memory of early trials, the long years she had lived in the last three, her philosophic resignation to the disillusions and disappointments with which her liberty had been pitted; it was her first appearance in the world of fashion—which she entered, after all, by a sort of divine right. Trepidation was undeveloped in her, and when she had stood for a moment, quite aware that her proud and singular beauty had won her instant recognition, she walked over to her hostess.