Page:The Yellow Book - 13.djvu/38

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But the next afternoon, at about the same hour, Ferdinand Augustus found himself alone, strolling in the direction of the little stone bridge over the artificial lakelet; and there again was the woman, leaning upon the parapet, dropping bread-crumbs to the carp. Ferdinand Augustus raised his hat; the woman bowed and smiled.

"It’s a fine day," said Ferdinand Augustus.

"It’s a fine day — but a weary one," the woman responded, with an odd little movement of the head.

Ferdinand Augustus was perhaps too shy to pursue the conversation; perhaps he wanted but little here below, nor wanted that little long. At any rate, he passed on. There could be no question about her smile this time, he reflected; it had been bright, spontaneous, friendly. But what did she mean, he wondered, by adding to his general panegyric of the day as fine, that special qualification of it as a weary one? It was astonishing that any man should dispute her claim to beauty. She had really a splendid figure; and her face was more than pretty, it was distinguished. Her eyes and her mouth, her clear-grey sparkling eyes, her softly curved red mouth, suggested many agreeable possibilities possibilities of wit, and of something else. It was not till four hours later that he noticed the sound of her voice. At dinner, in the midst of a discussion with Hilary about a subject in no obvious way connected with her (about the Orient Express, indeed — its safety, speed, and comfort), it suddenly came back to him, and he checked a remark upon the advantages of the corridor-carriage, to exclaim in his soul, "She’s got a delicious voice. If she sang, it would be a mezzo."

Rh