Her sympathy was touched. "Poor Gerald," she said, and for the first time she looked straight into his face, and their eyes met. He had thought he could read so much in those eyes; they were less easily fathomed than he had imagined. "Eugenia," he said, very gravely--she could not imagine what he was going to say--"you have grown very beautiful." To his surprise, she neither blushed nor looked down. She smiled up in his face, a bright, happy smile that seemed to flood over as with sunshine her lovely face, to add brilliance even to the rich wavy chestnut hair. "I am so glad you think so," she said, softly. "It makes it more possible to understand _his_ thinking so," was the unuttered reflection that explained her curious speech. Gerald had no key to her thoughts, therefore the strangeness of her reply struck him sharply, for he knew her to be incapable of small vanity or self-conceit. He looked at her again; she was still smiling; long ago her smile had seemed to him one of her greatest charms; it was so sweet and tender as well as bright, so wonderfully fresh and youthful, and with a certain dauntlessness about it--a defiance of failure and trouble, a fearless, childlike trustfulness. All this Gerald used to fancy he could read in Eugenia's smile; could he do so still? He could not tell, he turned away. He would not own to himself that his instinct had discovered a change; a dreaminess, a strange wistfulness had come over the dear face as it smiled up at him--a subtle indescribable shadow of alteration. "Perhaps it would be as well to tell Frank I am here," said Mr Thurston, after a moment's silence. "I should just like to shake hands with him in here, and then, if you will excuse my clothes," he glanced down at his grey tweed travelling-suit rather doubtfully--the contrast between it and Eugenia's delicate white evening dress striking him disagreeably, "I might go into the drawing-room for a few minutes to see your father and Sydney. You have some friends with you, though, have you not?"