It seemed hard to realize that one must forego it all for ever.
Presently he found himself acutely self-conscious. The sensation puzzled him; and without appearing to do so, he traced it from effect to cause; and found the cause in a woman—a girl, rather, seated at a table the third removed from him, near the farther wall of the room.
Too considerate, and too embarrassed, to return her scrutiny openly, look for look, he yet felt sure that, however temporarily, he was become the object of her intent interest.
Idly employed with his cigar, he sipped his coffee. In time aware that she had turned her attention elsewhere, he looked up.
At first he was conscious of an effect of disappointment. She was nobody that he knew, even by reputation. She was simply a young girl, barely out of her teens—if as old as that phrase would signify. He wondered what she had found in him to make her think him worth so long a study; and looked again, more keenly curious.
With this second glance, appreciation stirred the artistic side of his nature, that was already grown impatient of his fretted mood. The slender and girlish figure, posed with such absolute lack of intrusion against a screen of rose and gilt, moved him to critical admiration. The tinted glow of shaded candles caught glistening on the spun gold of her fair hair, and enhanced the fine pallor of her young shoulders. He saw promise, and something more than promise, in her face, its oval something dimmed by warm shadows that unavailingly sought to blend youth and beauty alike into the dull, rich background.
In the sheer youth of her (he realized) more than in aught else, lay her chiefest charm. She could be little more than a child, indeed, if he were to judge her by the purity of her shadowed eyes and the absence of emotion in the calm and direct look which presently she turned upon him who sat wondering at the level, penciled darkness of her brows.
At length aware that she had surprised his interest, Kirkwood glanced aside—coolly deliberate, lest she should detect in his attitude anything more than impersonal approval.
A slow color burned his cheeks. In his temples there rose a curious pulsing.
After a while she drew his gaze again, imperiously—herself all unaware of the havoc she was wreaking on his temperament.