Page:The Van Roon (IA thevanroon00snaiiala).pdf/83

 "Beauty, beauty everywhere," said the young man, letting his voice take its delicious fall. "There was an old Frenchman who said, that to see Beauty is to possess it. Look, Miss June, at that marvellous blue, and those wonderful, wonderful clouds that even Van Roon himself could hardly have painted. It is all ours, you know, all for our enjoyment, all for you and me."

"But you are speaking of the world, aren't you?" There was a slight note of protest in June's solemn tone.

"If you fall in love with beauty, all the world is yours. There's no escape from beauty so long as the sky is above us. No matter where we walk we are face to face with beauty."

June was afraid that a girl who looked so smart in a lilac silk dress and a picture hat that she had the air of a fashion plate must have caught William's injudicious observation. At any rate, she smiled at him as they passed. But then arose the question, had he not first smiled at her? Certainly, to be up against that intriguing frock, to say nothing of the hat, must have meant rare provocation for such an out-and-out lover of the ornamental.

Miss Grandeur, no doubt, had caught the look in his eyes which a minute ago June herself had surprised there. He simply could not help paying tribute to such radiance.

But was the girl beautiful? There was no doubt that William thought so. Still, the worst of it was that in his eyes everything under the sun was beautiful.

"She'd be nothing at all if it were not for the money she spends on herself," June remarked, with more severity that relevance.

All the same it was a rare experience to walk abroad