Not the slightest sign of gratified vanity as she spoke. All that had passed away with Frederick St. John.
That Signor de Castella was excessively handsome, I did not deny; but she was much more so.
"The complexion makes a difference," said Adeline, in answer. "Papa is pale; sallow you may term it, and in complexion I am like mamma. She owes hers, no doubt, to her English origin. You never saw a Frenchwoman with that marvellous complexion, at once brilliant and delicate."
I marvelled at her wondrous indifference. "You were formerly sufficiently conscious of your beauty, Adeline; you seem strangely callous to it now."
"I have outlived many feelings that were once strong within me. Vanity now for me!"
"Outlived? It is a remarkable term for one of your age."
"It is appropriate," she rejoined, quickly. "In the last few months I have aged years."
"Can this be?"
"You have read of hair turning grey in a single night," she whispered; "it was thus with my feelings. They became grey. I was in a dream so blissful that the earth to me was as one universal paradise; and I awoke to reality. That awaking added the age of a whole life to my heart."
"I cannot understand this," I said. And I really can't.