this trick of his, protesting that it made them stand on tiptoe to speak to
him.

There was something almost Oriental about Ruth, with her creamy, colorless
face, like a magnolia blossom; her dusky hair was loosely rolled from her
forehead and temples; her eyes were soft and brown beneath delicately
pencilled brows, and matched the pure oval of her face. But the languorous
air of Southern skies was wholly wanting in the sweet sympathy of her
glance, and in a certain alertness about the poise of her head.

Arnold stopped perforce at Miss Gwynne's slight signal.

"Where are you hastening?" she asked as they turned to greet her. "One
would think you saw your Nemesis before you, so oblivious were you to the
beauties scattered about." She looked up pertly at Arnold, after giving
one comprehensive glance over Ruth's toilet.

"We both wished to see the orchids of which one hears," he answered, with
pronounced French accent and idiom; adding, with a slight smile, "I did not
overlook you, but you were so busily contemplating other ground that it
would have been cruelty to disturb you." He spoke the language slowly, as
a stranger upon foreign ground.

"Oh, yes; I forgot. Dr. Kemp, are you acquainted with the Queen of Sheba
and her doughty knight Louis, surnamed Arnold?" She paused a moment as the
parties acknowledged the curious introduction, and then broke in rather
breathlessly: "There, Doctor, I shall leave you with royalty; do not let
your republican ignorance forget her proper title. Mr. Arnold, Mrs.
Merrill is beckoning to us; will you come?" and with a naive, superbly
impish look at Ruth, she drew Arnold away before he could murmur an excuse.