Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Guy Kenmore's Wife, and The Rose and the Lily
John Stuart Mill · en
The figure turned around from its contemplation of the moonlighted bay,
and looked at her. It was not Mr. Brooke at all. It was a younger,
handsomer man, whose brown eyes danced with irresistible mirth at her
pardonable vanity.
"Nice enough to eat," he answered coolly, and Irene gave a little,
startled shriek.
"Oh, dear, it isn't papa at all. Are you a bear, sir, that you talk of
eating me?" she inquired, demurely.
The stranger came forward into the light, and stood before her.
"Do I look like one?" he inquired, with a smile that lit up his face
indescribably.
Then, for a moment, they stared straight at each other, taking a mental
inventory of each other's appearance.
Ladies first--so we will try to give you some faint idea of how Irene
Brooke appeared in Guy Kenmore's eyes, though it is no easy task, for
beauty like hers, varying from light to shadow with
"Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change,"
defies all formal attempts at description.
She was a sixteen-year-old girl, with the graceful slenderness of that
exquisite age, and the warm, blonde beauty of the south. Her eyes were
deeply, darkly, beautifully blue, and appeared almost black beneath the
long, thick fringes of the beautiful, golden-brown lashes, and the
slender, arched brows of a darker hue. These arched brows, and the
faint, very faint, _retrousse_ inclination of the pretty little nose,
gave an air of piquancy and spirit to the young face that was hightened
by the proud curve of the short upper lip. The round, dimpled chin, and
soft cheeks were tinted with the soft pink of the sea shell. The waving,
rippling mass of glorious curls was of that warm, rich, golden hue the
old masters loved to paint. Put on such a fair young girl a dress of
soft white muslin and lace--just short enough to show the tiny,
high-arched feet in white kid slippers--girdle the slim waist with a
broad, blue ribbon, and fancy to yourself, reader mine, how sweet a
vision she appeared in the eyes of the stranger.
For him, he was tall, large, and graceful, with a certain air of
indolence and gracious ease, not to say laziness. He was decidedly
handsome, with a well-shaped head of closely-clipped brown hair, good
features, laughing brown eyes, and a drooping brown mustache. His summer
suit of soft, light-gray cloth was infinitely becoming.
But in much less time than it took for these cursory descriptions, Irene
has spoken:
"No, you do not look like a bear," she says, with charming frankness.
"You look like--see how good I am at guessing--like Bertha's city beau!
You are--_aren't_ you?"
Something in this childish frankness touches him with faint annoyance.
He chews the end of his long mustache after an old habit, and answers,
rather stiffly:
"My name is----"
"'Norval, from the Grampian hills,'" she quotes, with audacious
laughter.