Creswell returned, but Saybrooke, ashamed to ask a single question lest it might betray him, pleaded fatigue, and declined walking farther, and his friend, who had been watching him, to his secret amusement, left him to the indulgence of his observations.
By this time the story of his liberality, exaggerated, of course, had made its way over the room, and many were the efforts of the fair promenaders to catch the attention of a stranger so fashionable in appearance, so handsome, and reportedly so rich; but if he noticed the attractions of any, it was only to remark how inferior they were to those he was so intently contemplating. At length, to his extreme delight, he observed that she had picked up the rose which he had dropped on the table in his first bewilderment. “What a dolt I have been,” said he to himself; “after coming here to lay out money in charity, to take and retain an equivalent for it!” and to ease his conscience, he decided to get rid of the vase. So calling a servant who was attending on the tables, he directed him where to find it, and to present it to the designated lady in the post-office, with the compliments of a gentleman. He watched as the commission was executed. There was no flutter in the manner of the fair incognito, no wonder nor exultation. She merely asked the man a question or two, and dismissed him without a message. Her bearing suited him to a charm. It was that of a sultana receiving tribute.
“What a hand—what an incomparable hand!” was his next thought. One of his very few coxcomberies was a passion for beautiful hands, and it had its full gratification in the one which lay beside his vase, with whose whiteness it did not suffer in comparison. It was not small, but was exquisitely shaped, full, smooth and tapering, with not an irregular protuberance to detract from its graceful outlines. It set his fancy at a new picture. He imagined himself at his little mosaic chess-table—which was so small that any two at it were in very sociable proximity—and that snowy hand at the other side. Then he looked at her forehead, which was large and nobly developed—he was something of a phrenologist—and he decided that she had a genius for chess, consequently, that his recent purchase of chess-men might thus be suitably transferred. Accordingly, he hurried off to send it, but after he had done so, he found, on returning, his place occupied by a crowd.
The room had filled, and disappointed and abstracted he wandered about for an hour before he found an opportunity to speak to Creswell. The latter at length approached him, saying,
“I have a message for you from a lady.”
“What lady?” asked Saybrooke, eagerly, hoping it was the lady—the only one he cared about at the moment.
“The one to whom you sent your vase and chess-men; she says that if you don’t take them back she will offer them for sale anew.”
“I hope she did not think me impertinent in sending them?” said Saybrooke, looking alarmed, “how did she discover that it was I?”
“It was easy to ascertain by whom they were purchased, and she judged accordingly.”
“Then you know her?”