I don’t know why I watched the new-comers so intently. Perhaps it was on account of the deliberate and careful manner in which the man selected his dinner, his instructions to the maître d’hotel as to the manner the entrée was to be made, and the infinite pains he took over the exact vintage he required. He spoke in French, fluent and exact, and his manner was entirely that of the epicure.
Or was it because of that girl?—the girl with eyes of that deep, fathomless blue, the wonderful blue of the lake as it lay in the sunlight—the lake that was nearly a mile in depth. In her face I detected a strange, almost wistful look, an expression which showed that her thoughts were far away from the laughter and chatter of that gay restaurant. She looked at me without seeing me; she spoke to her father without knowing what she replied. There was, in those wonderful eyes, a strange, far-off look, and it was that which, more than anything else, attracted my attention and caused me to notice the pair.
Her fair, sweet countenance was perfect in its contour, her cheeks innocent of the Parisienne’s usual aids to beauty, her lips red and well moulded, while two tiny dimples gave a piquancy to a face which was far more beautiful than any I had met in all my wanderings.
Again she raised her eyes from the table and gazed across the flowers at me fixedly, with just a sudden inquisitiveness shown by her slightly knit brows. Then, suddenly starting, as though realizing she was looking at a stranger, she dropped her eyes again, and replied to some question her father had addressed to her.
Her dead black gown was cut just discreetly décolleté, which well became a girl not yet twenty, while at her throat, suspended by a very thin gold chain, was a single stone, a splendid ruby of enormous size, and of evident value. The only other ornament she wore was a curious antique bracelet in the form of a jewelled snake, the tail of which was in its mouth—the ancient emblem of Eternity.
Why she possessed such an attraction for me I cannot tell, except that she seemed totally unlike any other woman I had ever met before—a face that was as perfect as any I had seen on the canvases of the great painters, or in the marbles of the Louvre or the Vatican.
Again she raised her eyes to mine. Again I realized that the expression was entirely unusual. Then she dropped them again, and in a slow, inert way ate the crayfish soup which the waiter had placed before her.
Others in the big, long room had noticed her beauty, for I saw people whispering among themselves, while her father, leaning back in his chair on placing down his spoon, was entirely conscious of the sensation his daughter had evoked.
Throughout the meal I watched the pair carefully, trying to overhear their conversation. It was, however, always in low, confidential tones, and, strain my ears how I might, I could gather nothing. They spoke in French, which I detected from the girl’s monosyllables, but beyond that I could understand nothing.
From the obsequious manner of the maître d’hotel I knew that her father was a person of importance. Yet the man who knows what to order in a restaurant, and orders it with instructions, is certain to receive marked attention. The epicure always commands the respect of those who serve him. And surely this stranger was an epicure, for after his dessert I heard him order with his coffee a petit verre of gold-water of Dantzig, a rare liqueur only known and appreciated by the very select few who really know what is what—a bottle of which, if you search Europe from end to end, you will not find in perhaps twenty restaurants, and those only of the very first order.