as in
the National Gallery, long famous as the meeting-place of affinities, in
the big room where the pictures lent by the Duke of WESTMINSTER and the
Duke of BUCCLEUCH are now hanging, and before I knew it I found myself
standing between two young people whose eyes were fixed on each other.
Naturally I moved away at once, but later I returned and made so bold as to
study them a little, for it was clearly, if not yet a passion, a mutual
interest of such tender depths that no outsider could affect it.

The boy--for he was no more--was one of the most beautiful that I have ever
seen. His hair was perhaps a thought longer than we encourage to-day, but
one always sees odd people in the National Gallery, where artists--most
careless of men--are now constant visitors, drawn there by the many new
pictures, and especially, perhaps, the modern French examples from Sir HUGH
LANE'S collection. His hair was the more noticeable because he carried his
hat in his hand; his clothes were noticeable too, being a shade too
fanciful for London in winter--but then, who cares how people dress in
London? I am sure I don't; and especially so when they have such eyes as
this boy's, dark and rich, and such a curve to such lips.

There he stood, perfectly still, his steady gaze fixed on the lady
opposite, while she in her turn never wavered in her gaze upon him. But
whereas there was something bold in his homage there was a half-shy way
with her. He was facing her squarely, but she looked at him a little
sideways, and a little curiously, in demure dubiousness. One could see that
she was enormously intrigued, but her interest was not expressed by any
movement. In fact neither moved; they remained some twenty yards apart all
the time I observed them: each, I suppose, leaving it to the other--the boy
because he was so young, the girl because she was already woman, and woman
likes to force advances from man.

I never saw a prettier thing than the little lady, with her cool white
skin, and the faintest flush on her cheeks, and her eyes not less dark than
the boy's but lacking the sensitive depths of his.

The odd thing was that, although they were so engrossed each in the other,
both, I observed, looked also at me. It struck me as not the least strange
part of this charming drama that its hero and heroine, while completely
absorbed in their own sympathetic relationship, should be able to turn a
calm survey upon a stranger too. This gift made them th