Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/75

 game, Mr. Larkington?" said Mrs. Fallow-Deer, hospitably.

"With the greatest pleasure, madam," answered the Englishman.

He took his leave. Both ladies shook hands with him in saying good-night,—Mrs. Fallow-Deer with the real cordiality which underlay all the superficial artificiality of her manner; and Gladys laid a smooth white hand for an instant in his own.

Under similar circumstances he would have been apt to press the hand of a woman he so much admired, and whose manner with him had been so easy. He was in a state of unusual exhilaration, and even felt himself to be a little in love.

Something, however, in the young girl's eyes made him touch her hand as coolly and lightly as if she had been old and ugly instead of young and very beautiful.

There was a spirit of good-fellowship about her that fascinated him; it alternated so strangely with the grand air which seemed