was not of mirth but of kindness and sympathy and cheer.
"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come out once more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding at home. It is better to live one's normal life – even when it is not easy to do it. I say so who know."
The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand – a little gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust and affection.
"If all my friends were like you!" she said to him. And after that she drew a quick breath as if to have done with these sad matters, and she turned her eyes once more towards the broad room where the other guests stood in little groups, all talking at once very rapidly and in loud voices.
"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner parties in new Paris are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have a better time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalities should you say there are in this room now?"
"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking towards the doorway.
"Here he comes now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man with him, I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"
Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his turn. He said —
"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way through the joyous greetings of friends towards his hostess.
"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste. Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for – gallantry and that sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"
"Ye – es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau garçon. But – yes, well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get the idea that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic young squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine qualities. To be sure he appears to possess no ambition in particular, but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house, and there is no blot upon the history of that house – nothing but faithfulness and gallantry and honour. And there is, I think, no blot upon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so strongly of any one, I think."
The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he laughed.
"Oh well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that young man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie. In a sense that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him. His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his view of the heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or misfortune or grief.
"Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently, "or perhaps the other thing might do it best – the more obvious thing?"
The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him and, when he did not answer, she said —
"What thing then?"
"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah! he is coming here."
The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman with a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her wake. She said —
"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me, and cherish him! I believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She beamed over her shoulder, and departed, and Miss Benham found herself confronted by the Spanish-looking man.
Her first thought was that he was not as handsome as he had seemed at a distance but something much better. For a young man she thought his face was rather oddly weather-beaten, as if he might have been very much at sea, and it was too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked his eyes, which were not brown or black, as she had expected, but a very unusual dark grey – a sort of slate colour.
And she liked his mouth too. It was her habit – and it is not an unreliable habit – to judge people by their eyes and mouth. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased her because the lips were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin lips do, and they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found curiously agreeable.
"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth twitched and he grinned at her. Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain preliminary and more formal stage which ought to be got through with first, but Ste. Marie's grin was irresistible. In spite of herself she found that she was laughing.
"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it? Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at each other's heads. She takes my breath away at times."
"Ah well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something when I've led you to the place where food is. And, by the way, what are we waiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He broke off with a sudden exclamation of pleasure, and, when Miss Benham turned to look, she found Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some friends, had once more come up to where she stood. She watched the greeting between the two men, and its quiet affection impressed her very much. She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that it was not his habit to show or to feel a strong liking for young and idle men. This young man must be very worth while to have won the regard of that wise old Belgian.
Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded behind a cordon of friends, came up to her in an abominable temper over his ill luck, and, a few moments later, the dinner procession was formed and they went in.
At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the same strange fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. She looked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developed that there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attention to waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfish passion extraordinary to see and also, alas! to hear. Miss Benham turned from him to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.
"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen – not heard." But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust.
"I shall tell him nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadful really. People shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's not only the noises. Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, for example, make strange noises at table. But he behaves like a famished dog over a bone. I refuse to have anything to do with him. You must make up the loss to me, M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as two people." She smiled across at him in her gravely questioning fashion.
"I'm wondering," she said, "if I dare ask you a very personal question. I hesitate because I don't like people who presume too much upon a short acquaintance – and our acquaintance has been very very short, hasn't it? even though we may have heard a great deal about each other
