"No, I guess I'd somehow manage to struggle along on half a million dollars a year myself and kiss work good-bye," said the American, with a broad grin. "The little lady sure seems to have made a catch, sir, judging from what you've told me, and yet Mr. Antony Standish somehow don't look to me to be her style. By the look of Miss Rostrevor, and the way she handled that horse, I should have guessed her fancy would have run to something more of the big, he-man type, instead of to a Society dandy. But one can never tell where women are concerned. And five hundred thousand dollars a year will make any kind of guy almost any kind of girl's ideal."
Antony Standish was not a "guy," in the colloquial English sense of the word, but he was hardly the type of man one would have imagined as likely to capture the heart of the high-spirited Irish beauty. He was good-looking, with a fair complexion and a little sandy moustache, and he carried himself with the air of a patrician, but his face lacked character, and he had rather a weak chin. He had earned the reputation of being one of the best-dressed men in London, had a host of friends, most of whom called him "Tony," and he was talked of as "a good sport."
"Sure, and I wasn't showing off at all, at all, Tony," Myra Rostrevor was saying to him in her soft, musical voice with a delightfully attractive touch of the brogue. "It was Tiger here that was trying to show off and make himself out to be my master…. Weren't ye, Tiger?" She patted the sleek neck of her horse again as she spoke, and he pricked his ears and tossed his head as if he understood. "There isn't any horse or man who is going to master Myra Rostrevor," she added.
"That sounds like a challenge, Myra," drawled Tony Standish smilingly. "How do you know but what I may adopt cave-man tactics after we are married, and attempt to beat you into submission?"
Myra tossed her red-gold head much in the same way as her spirited mount had tossed his, and trilled out a laugh.
"I think, Tony, you'd be even less successful than Tiger, and more sorry for yourself than he is after your very first attempt," she responded.
"So perhaps I'd better not make a first attempt, even in the hope of getting a pat on the neck afterwards," laughed Tony.
There was pride and admiration in his pale blue eyes as he looked up at the girl who had promised to marry him. He was the owner of many priceless art treasures, none of which, however, was half as beautiful in his eyes as Myra Rostrevor.
Her beauty was unique, and even in an assembly of lovely women she would have attracted attention. Yet her features were not classically perfect, her small nose had the faintest suspicion of tip-tilt, and there was nothing stately or majestic about her. No one had ever compared her to a Greek goddess, but even artists raved about her beauty and charm, and competed for the privilege of painting her portrait.
She was slim but shapely. Her hair was the auburn that Titian loved to paint, with a golden gleam in it, as if a sunbeam had become entangled and failed to escape. Her complexion, innocent of powder or cosmetics, was clear and delicate as a rose-leaf but with the faintest tinge of healthy tan. Her eyes, blue as summer seas, were fringed with long, dark lashes, and she had an aggravatingly seductive dimple in each cheek, and another in the centre of her daintily-rounded chin.