I smiled, and answered in the negative. Her looks wandered from me to her daughter’s face,—then back to me again with a singularly intent expression. Finally, the potent magnetism of Lucio’s presence again attracted her, and she indicated him by a gesture.
“Ask your friend ... to come here ... and speak to me.”
[p 150]
Rimânez turned instinctively at her request, and with his own peculiar charm and gallant grace of bearing, came to the side of the paralysed lady, and taking her hand, kissed it.
“Your face seems familiar to me,”—she said, speaking now, as it seemed, with greater ease—“Have I ever met you before?”
“Dear lady, you may have done so”—he replied in dulcet tones and with a most captivating gentleness of manner—“It occurs to me, now I think of it, that years ago, I saw once, as a passing vision of loveliness, in the hey-day of youth and happiness, Helena Fitzroy, before she was Countess of Elton.”
“You must have been a mere boy—a child,—at that time!” she murmured faintly smiling.
“Not so!—for you are still young, Madame, and I am old. You look incredulous? Alas, why is it I wonder, I may not look the age I am! Most of my acquaintances spend a great part of their lives in trying to look the age they are not; and I never came across a man of fifty who was not proud to be considered thirty-nine. My desires are more laudable,—yet honourable eld refuses to impress itself upon my features. It is quite a sore point with me I assure you.”
“Well, how old are you really?” asked Lady Sibyl smiling at him.
“Ah, I dare not tell you!” he answered, returning the smile; “But I ought to explain that in my countings I judge age by the workings of thought and feeling, more than by the passing of years. Thus it should not surprise you to hear that I feel myself old,—old as the world!”
“But there are scientists who say that the world is young;” I observed, “And that it is only now beginning to feel its forces and put forth its vigour.”