“Dim and faint as the mists that break
At sunrise from a mountain lake,”
but they are evidently pleasant, for a soft smile passes over her lips, and her face seems to overflow with sunshine, while all manner of entrancing dimples spring into life, and make a “parfait amour” of her as our neighbours across the Channel say.
Perhaps an acute physiognomist would find something wanting in the fair sweet, girlish face, a power, a firmness, character, in fact, but few of us are true physiognomists, even if acute ones, and very few eyes, especially masculine ones, would discover flaws in the entrancing beauty that has caught Carl Conway’s worldly heart.
There is a wistful look in Zai’s face however, which does not deteriorate from her attractions. It has come with the thought that just there over the clump of swaying pines, is the house where Crystal Meredyth lives, and where Carl is staying.
“Zai!”
Zai has been a fixture against the oak tree for an hour, and so absorbed in her thoughts that the far-off expression lingers in her glance as she turns slowly round.
“Yes, Gabrielle.”
“Your mother wants you. Her ladyship’s keen instinct divined that in all probability you were mooning away your time out here.”
“Mooning, Gabrielle, what a word.”
“A very good word, and an expressive one. All Belgravia speaks slang now; it has become quite fashionable to imitate the coal-heavers and the horsey men, and I don’t dislike it myself. It is far better than the refined monotonous twaddle of those horrible convenances.”