I looked at her calmly. It was certainly wonderful how the _petite drôlesse_ in her had developed, amplified into something bewitching; but it was the adolescence of a witch, I thought. Her hair was umber gold, with pale green lights in it, and drawn back in loose wings from her forehead, and tied into a club at the nape of a very white neck. Her cheeks were a little lean, but pitted with the old dimples at pleasure; and the whole contour of her face was frankly girlish--soft and kind but for the eyes. Or at least I thought so. There seemed a knowledge in their artless honesty, born of depths below the blue. Blue, I say! I don’t know to this day if they are blue or green. It depends upon their point of view, whether it be sky or verdure. She was slender and smooth-limbed; a fragrant enough creature but for the odour of memory. I answered her deliberately. “Not to me. _I_ have had no finishing education. I am still governed by childish prejudices. I daresay you will be a success elsewhere.” She sighed a little, and got to her feet. “It is a shame,” she said, and very handsomely. “You have been neglected shamefully, I know. But I’ve no right to speak. I wish you thought me pretty.” “Well, so do I,” I said. “But, what does it matter? You are an heiress.” She stood regarding me seriously for a little. Then all of a sudden, to my amazement, her eyes blinked with tears. I stared at her, speechless. “Yes, I know,” she said; “it’s very silly. But you’ve no idea how you’ve been on my mind. It was at Dinan, first, and then in London, where I began to get things into their proper proportions--my own insignificance among the number. You were somehow always in the background of my thoughts--wasn’t that funny? You know, you were a very good-looking child, Richard; or perhaps you don’t know. I was horribly jealous of you, anyhow.” “Well, well,” I said. “And how about Lady Skene, Miss Christmas? Are you still in favour with her and Mr Pugsley?” “_Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut_,” she answered, laughing with a little twinkle through her tears. “She is a very beautiful woman, and therefore what she thinks must be right. I wish you would show me your poem after Mr Pugsley.” “What poem? But all that stuff is over. I have burnt everything I ever wrote.” “What a misanthrope you have become. But I don’t wonder. Am I to go now?” “You are keeping me from my tea.” “Won’t you let me serve it for you?” “I serve myself; and I intend to for the future.” “There is a story--did you ever read it?--of a shepherd who plucked a flower in a field, and brought it home and put it in water; and every night the flower turned into a beautiful girl, who swept and dusted his room for him, and set his meal, and was a flower again by the time he came down. But one night he caught her, and after that she had to remain a woman and serve him.”