“I am afraid I startled you,” said Violet.
“Yes,” said the stranger, “you did. I was too intent on the sculpture to hear you coming. It’s—just lovely. I wonder whether you could tell me who he was, or what it means, if you live round here.”
There was very little accent in her speech, but it was quick and Violet knew that most Englishwomen would not have expressed themselves so frankly to a stranger. Still, it was evident that the girl had artistic tastes, for the effigy had often stirred her own appreciation. It portrayed a mailed knight, not recumbent, but kneeling on one knee, with hands clenched on the hilt of a sword. A dinted helm lay beside him, and though it and his mail had suffered from iconoclastic zeal or time, the face was perfect, and almost living in its intensity of expression. It was not, however, devotional, but grim and resolute, and it had seemed to Violet that there was a great purpose in those sightless eyes.
“I am afraid I can’t,” she said. “He is supposed to have been one of the Pallisers, but it is not certain that he is even buried here, and nobody knows what he did. The sculpture may be purely allegorical. Still, the face is very suggestive.”
The blue-eyed girl looked at it fixedly. “Yes,” she said. “One would call it Fidelity. We have nothing of the kind in our country, and that is partly why it appeals to me. Yet I once met a man who looked just like that.”
“In America!” and Violet Wayne was vexed with herself next moment because she smiled.
The stranger straightened herself a trifle, but there was rather appreciation than anger in her eyes.
“Well,” she said, “I am proud of my country, but he was an Englishman, and it was in Cuba—in the rebellion.”
She turned and looked curiously at her companion, in a fashion that almost suggested that she recognized the finely moulded figure, grave gray eyes, and gleaming hair, while Violet made a slight deprecatory gesture.
“I can show you another memorial which is almost as beautiful,” she said. “In this case, however, what it stands for is at least authentic. A famous artist designed it.”