ch her bent head and busy, hovering hands, and remain unstirred
by her splendid beauty. He found himself wondering why one kind of
loveliness more than another should exert a potent and mysterious spell
by virtue of mere proximity, and when the woman who bore it was entirely
passive. If this girl had been looking at him the matter would have been
easy to understand, for an eye-glance is often downright hypnotic; but
she was looking at the work in her hands, and, so far as could be
judged, she had altogether forgotten his presence; yet the mysterious
spell, the potent enchantment, breathed from her like a vapor, and he
could not be insensible to it. It was like sorcery.

The girl looked up so suddenly that Ste. Marie jumped. She said:

"You are not a very talkative person. Are you always as silent as this?"

"No," said he, "I am not. I offer my humblest apologies. It seems as if
I were not properly grateful for being allowed to sit here with you,
but, to tell the truth, I was buried in thought."

They had begun to talk in French, but midway of Ste. Marie's speech the
girl glanced toward the old Michel, who stood a short distance away, and
so he changed to English.

"In that case," she said, regarding her work with her head on one side
like a bird--"in that case you might at least tell me what your thoughts
were. They might be interesting."

Ste. Marie gave a little embarrassed laugh.

"I'm sorry," said he, "but I'm afraid they were too personal. I'm afraid
if I told you you'd get up and go away and be frigidly polite to me when
next we passed each other in the garden here. But there's no harm," he
said, "in telling you one thing that occurred to me. It occurred to me
that, as far as a young girl can be said to resemble an elderly woman,
you bear a most remarkable resemblance to a very dear old friend of mine
who lives near Dublin--Lady Margaret Craith. She's a widow, and almost
all of her family are dead, I believe--I didn't know any of them--and
she lives there in a huge old house with a park, quite alone with her
army of servants. I go to see her whenever I'm in Ireland, because she
is one of the sweetest souls I have ever known."

He became aware suddenly that Mlle. O'Hara's head was bent very low over
her sewing and that her face, or as much of it as he could see, was
crimson.

"Oh, I--I beg your pardon!" cried Ste. Marie. "I've done something
dreadful. I don't know what it is, but I'm very, very sorry. Plea