Then a smile of joy illumined her whole face as she sprang forward, and, laying her hand lightly on the young man’s arm, exclaimed in delighted tones:
“Why, Geoffrey, where did you drop from? I imagined you a solitary recluse at Yale, and hard at work over Latin and Greek, ‘to gain time’ as you wrote in your last letter.”
The young man turned quickly as the sweet, lady-like voice fell upon his ear, his whole body thrilling at that light touch upon his arm, and found himself face to face with the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
A tall, slender, perfect form, clad in a bewitching suit of modest gray, stood before him. Her small head was proudly poised on a pair of graceful shoulders, and crowned with a jaunty turban of gray velvet in which there gleamed a scarlet feather. The face was delicate in outline, with lovely features and a complexion of pure white and rose. Her eyes of dark blue were lighted with surprise and gladness, her lips wreathed with a tender smile of welcome which parted them just enough to reveal the small, milk-white teeth between.
A look of admiration shot into the young man’s eyes, and then they began to gleam with amusement.
He raised his hat with all the gallantry of which he was master, and bowed low, as he replied:
“You have made a slight mistake, lady. I do not answer to the name by which you have addressed me, although I might be tempted to do so, perhaps, if I could thereby secure the pleasure of your acquaintance. Allow me,” he concluded, drawing a card from his pocket-book, and respectfully presenting it to her.
At the first sound of his voice Gladys was conscious that she had made a dreadful blunder, and she was instantly covered with confusion.
She knew at once that this man could not be Geoffrey, and yet who was he? So like him in face and form, with his very eyes and hair, and that familiar way of throwing up his head when suddenly addressed!
“Everet Mapleson, Richmond, Virginia,” she read upon the card that he had given her, and instantly the startled thought shot through her mind: “Can it be possible that he and Geoffrey are related?”