"These are your American ladies, are they? Pretty enough to be ladies, certainly. Look, Harrie! Isn't that Indian face exquisite?"
He passed them to his wife. The third was an actress, the fourth a danseuse. All were beautiful. With the last in his hand, Mr. Parmalee paused, and the first change Sybilla had ever seen cross his face crossed it then.
"This one I prize most of all," he said, speaking slowly and distinctly, and looking furtively at my lady. "This lady's story was the saddest story I ever beard."
Sybilla looked eagerly across the baronet's shoulder for a second. It was a lovely face, pure and child-like, with great, innocent blue eyes and wavy brown hair—the face of a girl of sixteen.
"It is very pretty," the baronet said, carelessly, and passed it to his wife.
Lady Kingsland took it quite carelessly. The next instant she had turned sharply around and looked Mr. Parmalee full in the face.
The American had evidently expected it, for he had glanced away abruptly, and begun hustling his pictures back into his portfolio. Sybilla could see he was flushed dark red. She turned to my lady. She was deathly pale.
"Did you paint those portraits, too?" she asked, speaking for the first time.
"No, marm—my lady, I mean. I collected these as curiosities. One of 'em—the one you're looking at—was given me by the original herself."
The picture dropped from my lady's hand as if it had been red-hot. Mr. Parmalee bounded forward and picked it up with imperturbable sang froid.