"Which means that you will not honour me," he interrupted blandly, looking questioningly into my face.
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed seeing how misinterpreted my words were. "I mean with regard to the dances, not the people. I do not like fast dances."
"Neither do I particularly," he answered, offering me his arm, "except when I sit them out. May I?" he asked in such a graceful deferential way that I know I smiled approvingly as I slipped my hand within his arm and went with him into the little ante-room opposite, where coals glowed in the open fire-place and a soft rose-coloured light fell over all the delicate splendor of the furnishings.
There were two heavy plush arm-chairs already drawn up to the fender, and Dr. Campbell moving one gently towards me, smilingly remarked that "we were evidently expected."
I took one and he sank into the other with a gesture of pronounced ease. The light from the fire was full upon his face and form, and feeling secure in the shadow of a fancy screen that had been shoved beside my chair, I set myself earnestly to work to analyse this wonderful man.
He was passively handsome, with a large brow and very large, expressive eyes. They were blue, too, but not like Mr. Dalton's. They were dreamier and more attractive. His face was quite bronzed, and his fine mouth was admirably set off by well-curved brown moustaches. His chin was bare but for one little bit under the lower lip. He was caressing this seeming favorite with one white, slender hand, almost fine enough for a lady's, while I observed him with keen scrutiny. He was an English Canadian, I learned that before I ever saw him, born and bred under Canadian skies, but this implies little of his bias or disposition.
Canada has not yet shaken off the fetters of her great grandparents sufficiently to bring out in a clear, marked way her own individuality. Her native sons and daughters inherit too faithfully the English, Irish, Scotch or French tenor of the characters of their predecessors to be able to grant to our ambitious country the national peculiarities and idiosyncracies which she covets, in order to assert herself freely, as the mother of a people who bear her resemblance stamped upon their mental and moral features. When a country has succeeded in fixing a seal upon the brow of every son that is born to her, she has secured the right of being paralleled, at least in one respect, with the greatest nations of the world. In time, Canada will accomplish this, for Canadians should be wonderful people. It baffles her to-day, because it is a question of time, and in her incapacity to influence time, Canada is only equal to Caesar's Rome, or Victoria's Great Britain.
There was a look of keen intelligence in Dr Campbell's countenance that pleased me particularly, something so refreshing to see, after all the vapid expressions of uneducated men. I could easily understand now, how he gained that prestige which made conquests for him wherever he went. Truly, I did not believe him a very widely informed man, but he was a man of fixed principles and a man of ambition. Moreover he had a wonderful savoir-faire that carried him through all sorts of adventitious circumstances gracefully. It is a clear counterfeit of genuine acumen, and, with a world that knows no better, gets just as much favor and praise.
During the fifteen minutes that we passed together in Mrs. Hartmann's cosy morning-room, with our feet on her polished brass fender, we learned much of one another's hidden selves, that people who had known us both for years had failed to gather.
I went to supper on Dr. Campbell's arm and gave him a rose from my bouquet. He saw us to our carriage when we were leaving, and promised to call on the following Tuesday.