“Who says that I do not find it often very dull,” he answered, and putting down his tea-cup he rose. “Madame, I have already stayed beyond the limit of time prescribed by good manners. Please forgive me.”
“Yes, if you will come again and stay just as long,” answered Margaret, with her frank and pleasant smile.
“I shall be happy if I may come often enough to persuade you that I am not a strange animal, but a man like others you have met,” he said; and though he answered Mrs. Garrison, his eyes as he spoke were upon Anne Warren.
The smile on his dark and recently sombre face was like an irradiation, and the life and warmth of it held an almost magnetic charm for the two Americans. He appeared to them a distinguished figure of mobile and expressive personality, lit by the flame of a great variety of feelings.
“How delightful he is,—in spite of being a foreigner,” exclaimed the older woman the moment her guest was out of hearing.
“Is not a foreigner a man?” asked Anne mockingly; “is he not warmed with heat, and chilled with cold? does he not hunger and thirst, as we do?”
Her face had lost its look of reverie, and was now alert with pleasure.
14
