As Ashburner came up to Mrs. Harrison she began to play off her eyes at him, and he then perceived that they constituted her chief beauty. They were of that deep blue which, in certain lights, passes for black,--large, expressive, and pleasing; the sort of eyes that go right through a man and look him down to nothing. Indeed, they had such effect on him that he lost all distinctive idea of her other features. Her manner, too, had something very attractive, though he could not have defined wherein it consisted. She did not exhibit the _empressement_ with which most of her countrywomen seek to put a stranger at his ease at once; or the _exigence_ of a spoiled lady waiting to be amused; or the haughtiness of a great lady, who does not care if she is amused herself and deigns no effort to amuse others. Neither did she attack him with raillery and irony, as Mrs. Benson had done on their first meeting. But she behaved as if she were used to seeing men like Ashburner every day of her life, and was willing to meet them half-way and be agreeable to them, if they were so to her, without taking any particular trouble, for there was no appearance of effort to please, or even of any strong desire to please, in her words and gestures; yet she _did_ please and attract very decidedly. "So I saw you in Mrs. Harrison's train!" said Benson, when they next met. "Yes, and I fancy I know why you hesitated to introduce me." As Ashburner spoke he glanced towards the parlor, where "our set"--Mrs. Benson, of course, conspicuous among them--were engaged in their ordinary occupation of dancing. "Oh, I assure you, _madame_ is not disposed to be jealous, nor am I a man to take part in women's quarrels. I don't like the lady myself, to begin with; and were I a bachelor, should have as little to say to her as I have now. In the first place she is too old----" "Too old! she cannot be thirty." "Of course a lady never _is_ thirty, until she is fifty, at least; but at any rate I may say, without sacrilege, that Mrs. H. is pretty high up in the twenties. Now, at that age a woman ought--not to give up society, that would be an absurdity in the other extreme, but--to leave the romping dances and the young men to the girls, who want them more and whom they become better. Then I don't like her face. You must have taken notice that all the upper part of it is fine and intellectual, and she has glorious eyes----" "Yes," said Ashburner.