Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/86

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78
"BONES AND I."

tion. Handsome, manly, rich, affectionate, and sincere, worshipping his deity with all the reckless devotion, all the unscrupulous generosity of his brave Hungarian heart, I saw his very lip quiver under its heavy moustache when she turned her glittering eyes on him with some allusion called up by the business of the stage, and the proud, manly face that had never quailed before an enemy grew white in the intensity of its emotion. What made me think of a stag I once found lying dead in a Styrian pass, and a golden eagle feasting on him with her talons buried in his heart?

The Gräfinn, to whom the box belonged, noticed my abstraction. 'Don't fall in love with her,' she whispered; 'I can't spare you just yet. Isn't she beautiful?'

" 'You introduced me,' was my answer, 'but you never told me her name.' "

" 'How stupid!' said the Gräfinn. 'At