Page:Rowland--The Mountain of Fears.djvu/185

  He stood holding her hand and saying what was necessary, and while he was saying it his light, wicked eyes were devouring her. The thing was so outrageous that I could not help glancing at the Count, and at the same moment his soft, dark eyes met mine, and, to my amazement, he actually smiled! He saw the thing as I saw it; no one could have seen it differently; in fact, there was a sort of mutual understanding in his smile, but nothing unkindly.

"The Countess was quick to recover her poise; not through breeding nor modesty, but from sheer combativeness. She seemed suddenly to realize—and I have no doubt that it struck her as quite a new idea—that a man could be too familiar with his eyes alone. There was plenty of fight in her, as one could see from the flash of her dark blue eyes and the rounded squareness of her jaw. She promptly assumed so great an air of chilly condescension that Stewart stared again and then began to grin. He was [ 169 ]