“He looks so young. I can’t believe that he’s really very naughty.” “Well, my dear, there’s no doubt about his mother’s maid. The evidence is of the--most conclusive order. I know I should be dreadfully angry with him, but every one is so virtuous now-a-days that a change is quite refreshing. And he’s so young, he may reform. Englishmen start galloping to the devil, but as they grow older they nearly always change horses and amble along gently to respectability, a wife, and seventeen children.” “I like the contrast of his green eyes and his dark hair.” “My dear, it can’t be denied that he’s made to capture the feminine heart. I never try to resist him myself. He’s so extremely convincing when he tells you some outrageous fib.” Bertha went to her room and looked at herself in the glass, then put on her most becoming dinner-dress. “Good gracious,” said Miss Ley. “You’ve not put that on for Gerald? You’ll turn the boy’s head, he’s dreadfully susceptible.” “It’s the first one I came across,” replied Bertha, innocently. Chapter XXIX “You’ve quite captured Gerald’s heart,” said Miss Ley to Bertha a day or two later. “He’s confided to me that he thinks you ‘perfectly stunning.’” “He’s a very nice boy,” said Bertha, laughing. The youth’s outspoken admiration could not fail to increase her liking; and she was amused by the stare of his green eyes, which, with a woman’s peculiar sense, she felt even when her back was turned. They followed her; they rested on her hair and on her beautiful hands; when she wore a low dress they burnt themselves on her neck and breast; she felt them travel along her arms, and embrace her figure. They were the most caressing, smiling eyes, but with a certain mystery in their emerald depths. Bertha did not neglect to put herself in positions wherein Gerald could see her to advantage; and when he looked at her hands she could not be expected to withdraw them as though she were ashamed. Few Englishmen see anything in a woman, but her face; and it seldom occurs to them that her hand has the most delicate outlines, all grace and gentleness, with tapering fingers and rosy nails; they never look for the thousand things it has to say. “Don’t you know it’s very rude to stare like that,” said Bertha, with a smile, turning round suddenly. “I beg your pardon, I didn’t know you were looking.” “I wasn’t, but I saw you all the same.”