Isabel turned with a start, but greeted Lord Hexam with a smile. He was as yet her one satisfactory experience of the young English nobleman, whom, like most American girls, she had unconsciously foreshadowed in doublet and hose. Hexam was quite six feet, with a fine military carriage; he had been in the Guards and had not left the army until after two years of active service; his blue eyes were both honest and intelligent, and he was generally clean cut and highly bred. He drew up a chair beside Isabel and reflected that she was even handsomer than he had thought, with the sunlight warming the ivory whiteness of her skin, although it contracted the mobile pupils of her eyes; and that little black moles when rightly placed were more attractive than he had thought possible. They gave a sort of daring unconscious eighteenth-century coquetry to what was otherwise a somewhat severe style of beauty. But he was a man for whom a woman's hair had a peculiar fascination, and while they were uttering commonplaces at random his eyes wandered to the soft yet massive coils encircling Isabel's shapely head, and lingered there. "Pardon me!" he said, boyishly. "But I always thought--don't you know?--that hair like that was only in novels and poems and that sort of thing. Is it all your own?" he asked, with sudden suspicion. "You would think so if you had to carry it for a day. I should have had it cut off long ago if it had happened to be coarse hair. It is an inherited evil of which I am too vain to rid myself. The early Spanish women of my family all had hair that touched the ground when they stood up. I have an old sketch of a back view of three of them taken side by side; you see nothing but billows of fine silky hair. But I have put it out of sight, as it looks rather like an advertisement for a famous hair restorer." "I'd give a lot to see yours down. It's wonderful--wonderful!" "Well, I have promised a private view to some of the women. If Lady Victoria thinks it quite proper perhaps I'll admit you." "I'll ask her for a card directly she comes home. Let it be this afternoon just after tea." "I wonder if they really are engaged," said Isabel, who had been told that Englishmen never paid compliments, and was growing embarrassed under the round-eyed scrutiny. Gwynne and Mrs. Kaye had paused by a sundial. "Who? Oh yes, I should think so, although there was some talk that poor Bratty--but no doubt that was mere rumor, or Mrs. Kaye wouldn't be on with Jack like that. By Jove, he is engaged. I never saw him look so--so--well, I hardly know what." "Do you approve of the match?" "If my consent is asked I shall give them my blessing. He is the salt of the earth, although a bit lumpy now and then; and she is such a jolly little thing, full of genuine affection--just the wife for Jack."