Slender, erect, exquisitely-tailored, she had gone by like
some queen in a pageant, gracious yet unapproachable.
He stared after her, mutely bewildered at the effect she
produced upon him--until he saw that a groom had run from
the stable-yard, and was helping the divinity to dismount.
The angry thought that he might have done this himself
rose within him--but there followed swiftly enough
the answering conviction that he lacked the courage.
He did not even advance to proffer his services to the other
young lady, while there was still time. The truth was,
he admitted ruefully to himself, they unnerved him.
He had talked freely enough to them, or rather to the company
of which they made part, the previous evening. There had
been an hour or more, indeed, before the party broke up,
in which he had borne the lion's share of the talk--and
they had appeared as frankly entertained as the others.
In fact, when he recalled the circle of faces to which he
had addressed his monologue of reminiscences--curious
experiences and adventures in Java and the Argentine,
in Brazil and the Antilles and Mexico and the far West--it
was in the face of Lady Cressage that he seemed to discern
the most genuine interest.
Why should she frighten him, then, by daylight? The
whimsical theory that the wine at dinner had given him
a spurious courage occurred to him.
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