“I am lost! it is divine! I have never seen or heard her equal. Tell me, what did you say is her name; the face haunts me; I could swear I have seen it before.”
“Tut! swear not at all. It’s not likely you have ever seen her before to-night. Perhaps she corresponds with some fairy-queen or lady-love born of your own prolific fancy. Is it not so? I can well conceive such a thing possible, though I’m neither poet nor artist.”
Martin bowed to save himself from the necessity of a reply, for he was deep in thought, and through the obscurity of the distant Past his memory was striving to grope her way.
After a few moments the singer appeared again in the saloon.
“Did you say her name is Alice?” asked Martin Gray, as his eyes for the second time rested upon her. “Alice—Alice what?”
“I have never heard—she is only known by that name. She does not need so many cognomens as we less gifted individuals, and I suppose intends that the world shall know without being told further, who is meant when the singer Alice is spoken of.”
“Dundas, I have seen that face before, you may depend upon it—will you believe it? during all my residence in Europe I have sought with desperate earnestness, but in vain, for a face just such as hers.”
“Pray wherefore? Are you not the sworn foe of all lady-loves save the sweet goddess of painting?”
“Hush! love has had nothing to do with my search—pretty faces are to be found every where; and though an artist, I am free to say the man who marries a woman for her beauty is a poor fool. Did you ever see my picture called Sunrise, painted seven or eight years ago?”
“Remember it? Why, my dear fellow, to be sure I do, and what a grand lift it gave you before the ‘darling public;’ I would be stupid indeed to forget that picture or its author. A copy of it has been the best ornament of my room for years!”