Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/213

Rh table as myself and diagonally facing the girl therefore what I learned about him was for the moment mainly what she told me; meaning by "she" her face, her eyes, her movements, her whole perverted personality. She was extremely on her guard, and I should never have guessed her secret but for an accident. The accident was that the only time she dropped her eyes upon him during the repast I happened to notice it. It might not have been much to notice, but it led to my seeing that there was a little drama going on, and that the young man would naturally be the hero. It was equally natural that in this capacity he should be the cause of my asking my left-hand neighbor, who happened to be my host, for some account of him. But "Oh, that fellow? he's my nephew," was a description which, to appear copious, required that I should know more about the uncle.

We had coffee on the terrace of the house; a terrace laid out in one quarter, oddly and charmingly, in grass, where the servants who waited upon us seemed to tread, processionally, on soundless velvet.