Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/323

 had not talked for years. He discoursed of the great ones of his youth, the singers and dancers of the 'Sixties when he was at the Embassy at Paris and ginger was hot in the mouth. Then by a process of gradation he went on to tell his old stories of Gladstone and Dizzy, to discuss books and politics and the pictures in the Uffizi, and to cap with tales of his own travels an occasional brief anecdote, wittily told, of her own tours in America and South Africa.

Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie could not help feeling hostile, yet it was clear that this remarkable girl had put an enchantment on their father. While he talked to her the table, the room, the people in it seemed to pass beyond his ken. Candor bred the thought that it was not to be wondered at, her way of listening was so delightful. The beautiful head—it hurt them to admit the fact yet there it was—bent towards him in a kind of loving reverence, changing each phrase of his into something rare and memorable by a receptivity whose only wish was to give pleasure to a poor old man struggling with a basin of arrowroot—that sight and the sense of a presence alive in every nerve, a voice of pure music, and a face incapable of evil: was it surprising that a spell was cast upon their sire? Take her as one would she was a real natural force—an original upon whom the fairies had lavished many gifts.

The family chieftain was renewing his youth, but only Charlotte understood why. In common with the rest of the world, Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie were to be kept in ignorance of the truth—for the present at any rate. But already the Dinneford ladies had taken further counsel of the sage of Hill Street, and upon her advice all