“Poor girl!” put in Dan, “she has no sweetheart to be fond of, or has lost him.”
“Quand on n’a pas ce qu’on aime, il faut aimer ce qu’on a,” said Philip lightly.
Philip’s tone, rather than the words themselves, was somewhat of a shock to his hearers. Everyone remembered the grave in the Canadian prairie. Would Philip, too, philosophically having lost what he had loved, console himself by loving what he had?
Philip had certainly changed a good deal from the boy who had rushed off to the North-West broken-hearted, to visit a little mound of earth near Qu’Appelle, and had come back announcing that he should for ever remain a bachelor. He was not melancholy now, he was quite evidently in excellent spirits. Even the sight of the girl at the White House, who was, as he himself said, the living image of the lost Eweretta, failed to fan the old flame.
He spoke of Miss Le Breton quite freely.
Turning to Dan he said: “You should get a sight of Miss Le Breton. Perhaps Alvin could give you a commission to paint her. She is wonderful.”
“What is she like?” inquired Dan.
Philip considered.
“Black hair, blue eyes—that often look dark,” he said, and paused.
“She has wonderful eyes, heavily-fringed,” he went on. “Her skin is pale and clear.”