Bella's cheeks had been flushed with excitement, but the dark red that rose at Fairfax's words made her look like a little Indian. "Oh, I didn't know!" she stammered. "I didn't know." Her cousin comforted her cheerfully. "That's all right. I don't mind. I fell from a cherry tree when I was a little chap and I've stumped about ever since." His aunt's gentle voice, indifferent and soft, like Gardiner's murmured-- "Oh, don't listen to her, Antony, she's a spoiled, inconsiderate little girl." But Bella had drawn nearer the stranger. She leaned on the table close to him and lifted her face in which her eyes shone like stars. She had wounded him, and it didn't seem to her generous little heart that she could quite let it go. And under her breath she whispered-- "But there's the _light_ step, isn't there, Cousin Antony? And the smile--the awfully light smile?" Fairfax laughed and leaned forward as though he would catch her, but she had escaped from under his hand like an elusive fairy, and when he next saw her she was back in her corner with her book on her knees and her dark hair covering her face. CHAPTER III He talked with his aunt for a long while. Her grace and dignity suggested his mother, but she was not so lovely as the other woman, whose memory was always thrilling to him. Fairfax ran eagerly on, on fire with his subject, finally stopping himself with a laugh. "I reckon I'm boring you to death, Aunt Caroline." "Oh, no," she breathed, "how can you say so? How proud she must be of you!" Downstairs in the hall he had left his valise and his little hand satchel, with the snow melting on them. He came from a household whose hospitality was as large, as warm, as bright as the sun. He had made a stormy passage by the packet _Nore_. His head was beginning to whirl. From the sofa there was not a sign. Bella read ardently, her hand pressing a lock of her dark hair across her burning cheek. Gardiner, his eyes on his cousin, drank in, fascinated, the figure of the big, handsome young man. "He's my relation," he said to himself. "He's one of our family. I know he can tell stories, and he's a traveller. He came in the fairy cars." Mrs. Carew tapped her lip with her thimble. "So you will learn to model here," she murmured. "Now I wonder who would be the best man?" And Fairfax responded quickly, "Cedersholm, auntie, he's the only man." "My husband," his aunt began to blush, "your uncle knows Mr. Cedersholm in the Century Club, but I hardly think...." Antony threw up his bright head. "I have brought a letter from the President to Cedersholm and several of the little figures I have modelled."