whom the lodestone of her beauty drew round her. I had lived in her country, spoke her language as readily as my own, and could find many interests in common. Naturally I played that for all it was worth.

From the first moment of meeting I was enslaved by her stately grace, her ravishing smile, her soft, liquid, sympathetic voice, the subtle but ineffable charm of her presence, and the dark lustrous eyes into which I loved to bring the changing lights of surprise, curiosity, interest and pleasure.

I was miserable when away from her; and should have been wholly happy in her presence if it had not been for the despairing sense of unworthiness which plagued and depressed me. She was a goddess to me, and I a mere clod.

For three weeks—three crazily happy and yet crazily miserable weeks for me—this had continued; and then I had been wired for at a moment’s notice, owing to my dear father’s sudden illness.

[12]I had to leave within an hour of the receipt of the telegram, without a chance of putting the question on which my whole happiness depended, without even a word of personal leave-taking. And for the whole of the four months since that night I had had to remain in England.

[12]

During nearly all the time my father lay hovering between life and death. At intervals, uncertain and transitory, he regained consciousness; and at such moments his first question was for me. I could not think of leaving him, of course; and even when the end came, the settlement of the many affairs connected with the large fortune he left delayed me a further two or three weeks.

My sister assured me that, through some friend or other, she had contrived to let Miralda know something of the facts; but this was no more than a cold comfort. When at length I turned the Stella’s head toward Lisbon, steaming at the top speed of her powerful engines, I felt how feeble such a written explanation, dribbling through two or three hands and watered down in the dribbling process, might appear to Miralda, even assuming that she had given me a second thought as the result of those three weeks in Paris.

But I was in Lisbon at last; and although I could not help realizing that a hundred and fifty obstacles might have had time to grow up between us during the long interval, I gritted my teeth in the resolve to overcome them.

Anyway, the following night would show me how the land lay; and, as anything was 

 Prev. P 8/273 next