and yet I knew that in some crucial 14 moment I had looked into those pale and scintillating eyes.

14

A wave of repulsion swept over me. I could not remember when I had experienced two such keen emotions as my surprised admiration for the girl, and the dislike, almost amounting to disgust, which I felt for Farnham's friend, Carson Wildred. Something deeper than mere annoyance surged in my breast, that that dark personality should lurk so near to the spotless whiteness of the gauzy drapery, which vaguely seemed to me a part of the girl's self.

"Eh? What did you say? How do you like his looks? Peculiar face, isn't it?" queried Farnham, close to my ear.

"Yes, it is peculiar," I answered, mechanically, snatching at the phrase.

"And the girl! Isn't she something rather choice?"

"Very lovely. Who is she?"

"A Miss Karine Cunningham. Same name as the mine that Wildred is going to take off 15 my hands. Merely a coincidence, but I fancy it influenced him in his wish to buy the property, perhaps. He is very much in love with the girl, and rich as he apparently is, she can more than match him, I should say. She's an orphan, whose father, though he came of what you English call a 'good family,' made his pile in trade; and Sir Walter Tressidy, who is in the box with his wife, was her guardian until she came of age, about a year ago. She still lives with them, and Lady Tressidy takes her about. All these things Wildred, who is never so happy as when he is talking of Miss Cunningham, has told me; so you see, I'm pretty well primed as to her antecedents, means, and so on. The girl has thirty thousand pounds a year if she has a penny. Whew! Only think what that means in American money. She could buy and sell me."

15

I might have truthfully replied that the young lady could have had me without either buying or selling, since–for the first time since my callow days–these few moments had 16 taught me what it was to experience a wild quickening of the pulses under the casual glance of a woman's eyes.

16

She had seen me. So much satisfaction at least was mine. Wildred had doubtless pointed out his friend, and her gaze had passed on to me–drawn, perhaps, by the compelling magnetism of the strange new feeling which dominated me.

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