"You so rarely see that contrast of fair hair and black eyes," said the voice; "and there is something peculiar in those eyes."
There was nothing particular in the words: it was the tone in which they were spoken that caught Isabel Gilbert's ear—the tone in which Lady Clara Vere de Vere herself might have spoken; a tone in winch there was a lazy hauteur softened by womanly gentleness,—a drawling accent which had yet no affectation, only a kind of liquid carrying on of the voice, like a legato passage in music.
"Yes," returned another voice, which had all the laziness and none of the hauteur, "it is a pretty face. Joanna of Naples, isn't it? she was an improper person, wasn't she? threw some one out of a window, and made herself altogether objectionable."
Mr. Raymond wheeled round as suddenly as if he had received an electric shock, and ran across the room to a gentleman who was lounging in a half-reclining attitude upon one of the broad window-seats.
"Why, Roland, I thought you were at Corfu!"
The gentleman got up, with a kind of effort and the faintest suspicion of a yawn; but his face brightened nevertheless, as he held out his hand to Isabel's late employer.
"My dear Raymond, how glad I am to see you! I meant to ride over to-morrow morning, for a long day's talk. I only came home last night, to please my uncle and cousin, who met me at Baden and insisted on bringing me home with them. You know Gwendoline? ah, yes, of course you do."
A lady with fair banded hair and an aquiline nose—a lady in a bonnet which was simplicity itself, and could only have been produced by a milliner who had perfected herself in the supreme art of concealing her art—dropped the double eye-glass through which she had been looking at Joanna of Naples, and held out a hand so exquisitely gloved that it looked as if it had been sculptured out of grey marble.
"I'm afraid Mr. Raymond has forgotten me," she said "papa and I have been so long away from Midlandshire."
"And Lowlands was beginning to look quite a deserted habitation. I used to think of Hood's haunted house whenever I rode by your gates, Lady Gwendoline. But you have come home for good now? as if you could come for anything but good," interjected Mr. Raymond, gallantly. "You have come with the intention of stopping, I hope."