“And which is your niece?” she asked, turning her kind eyes towards him. She seemed to hold up her tiara by the force of uplifted eyebrows. Marcus showed her.
“That lovely thing!” she exclaimed with a generous enthusiasm, and Marcus felt a tingle all down his spine and an inclination to cry. How could any man with a pretension to taste have pronounced her fascinating without being strictly beautiful?
“Yes,” he said; “you admire her?”
“Admire her! Could I do anything else?”
“If you were less beautiful yourself—yes!” said Marcus, with a rush of gratitude.
To say the little woman was astonished does not express in the least what she felt, but she was as shaken as was Marcus by the hysterical outburst. He felt he could never trust himself again.
He had told quite the wrong kind of woman she was beautiful.
He wasn’t happy again until he had drawn Diana’s attention to the little woman and asked her what she thought of her.
“That dear little Madonna? Why, she’s exactly what Aunt Elsie goes second-class to Italy to gaze upon—the type exactly. Do go and tell her she’s beautiful. It’s all she needs.”
“I have,” said Marcus.