Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/15

 "Perhaps it does, a tiny bit, now you speak of it; though of course Teresina Ricardo couldn't touch Lady Catherine for beauty," she replied at last.

"Perhaps Sir Joshua's idea of Lady Catherine," amended Mrs, Forestier. "If he could have had Teresina for a model, very likely he would have made her even handsomer than Lady Catherine. What do you think, Sir Ian? You used to know Terry in India."

"She was more fascinating than handsome, as I remember her," he answered with just a perceptible stiffening of his thin, brown soldier-face.

"I mean, what do you think about the portrait reminding one of her?"

"There is something like in the expression of the mouth—or the shape of the eyes."

"Or both," added Mrs. Forestier, "and I suppose it's not so very remarkable, since there are a few drops of the same blood in Terry's veins. I hadn't realized the resemblance, till the other day, though I sometimes said to myself: Who is that portrait like? But then I don't suppose I'd thought twice of Terry Ricardo in five years till a week ago—since you and Milly ran over to Paris."

"What made you think of her then?" asked Lady Hereward, turning her favourite ring on her finger.

"Why, she's in England—arrived yesterday, and has come to visit the Norman Ricardos. Maud Ricardo