Ansley smiled slightly, and said: “There was a photograph of you that he had then. A little girl in short dresses, a very serious, earnest-looking little girl—all eyes. I can remember wishing to see you then. I wanted to see if your eyes really looked like that. They do, you know. But, still, I can’t imagine that you are his ‘little girl.’”
Miss Grace laughed and blushed a good deal under the scrutiny and criticism, and suggested good-humouredly that if he would go with her she would show him the original photograph, and he could satisfy himself on that point.
From one of the drawing-room tables she took a folding frame made to hold two photographs, and pointing to the right-hand one, handed it to him. After a full minute’s close inspection, Ansley looked up, smiling gravely at the girl.
“There is no mistaking it,” he said; “that is the photograph. I would know it anywhere. It made a great impression on me when I first saw it on account of a little incident that was in a sort of way connected with it.”
“What was that?”
As she asked the question he glanced from the photograph to the other side of the frame, where there was a little faded, old-fashioned Christmas card. As it caught his eye a half-suppressed exclamation escaped him, and, oblivious of the girl’s presence, he drew the card out and read the writing on the back; and then, glancing out through the open window, he thought of how he had first seen it.
As Miss Grace looked at him, she saw that his brown sunburnt face looked a little lined and careworn. Under the dark moustache the mouth drooped rather sadly at the corners, and the eyes were large and sad too just now. She watched him for a little while, and then, interrupting his thought, said gently:
“Well, Mr Ansley, I am waiting to hear the incident of which I was the unconscious heroine.”
“A thousand pardons. It was thinking of that very incident that made me forget your question. It cannot be an accident that those two cards are in the same frame. Of course, you must know the history?”
“Of course, I do; but surely you cannot; why, the Christmas card it is impossible that you could have seen.”