ppointed. She entered her sitting room thoughtfully, and went up to
her husband.

"Geoffrey, she is horribly like him."

"If poor Marioni had had this girl's looks I should have felt more
jealous," he answered lightly. "I'm almost sorry Lumley is here."

She shook her head.

"She is beautiful, but I don't think Lumley will admire her. He places
expression before everything, and this girl has none. She must have been
very unhappy, I think, or else she is very heartless!"

He stood with his back to the fire, twisting his mustache and warming
himself.

"The fact is," he remarked, "you're disappointed because she didn't jump
into your arms and cry a little, and all that sort of thing. Now, I
respect the girl for it; for I think she was acting under constraint.
Give her time, Adrienne, and I think you'll find her sympathetic enough.
And as to the expression--well, I may be mistaken, but I should say that
she had a sweeter one than most women, although we haven't seen it yet.
Give her time, Adrienne. Don't hurry her."

It was two hours before they saw her again, and then she came into the
drawing room just as the dinner gong was going. Neither of them had seen
her save by the dim light of a single lamp, and even then she had been
wrapped in a long traveling coat; and so, although Lord St. Maurice had
called her beautiful, they were neither of them prepared to see her
quite as she was. She wore a plain black net dinner gown, curving only
slightly downward at the white throat, the somberness of which was
partially relieved by an amber foundation. She had no jewelry of any
sort, nor any flowers, and she carried only a tiny lace handkerchief in
her left hand. But she had no need of a toilet or of adornment. That
proud, exquisitely graceful carriage, which only race can give, was the
dowry of her descent from one of the ancient families of Southern
Europe; but the beauty of her face was nature's gift alone. It was
beauty of the best and purest French type--the beauty of the aristocrats
of the court of Louis the Fourteenth. The luxurious black hair was
parted in the middle, and raised slightly over the temples, showing a
high but delicately arched forehead. Her complexion was dazzling in its
purity, but colorless. There was none of the harshness of the Sicilian
type in her features, or in the lines of her figure. The severest critic
of feminine beauty could have asked only for a slightly relaxed mouth,
and a touch of humani