"Bewitching is a very vague term," said he, smiling again,
more quietly. "But you have had an opportunity of knowing it
much better of late than I — to which class of bright faces
would you refer this one? Where does the light come from?"

"I never studied faces in a class," said Constance, a little
scornfully. "Come from? — a region of mist and clouds, I
should say, for it is sometimes pretty well covered up."

"There are some eyes whose sparkling is nothing more than the
play of light upon a bright bead of glass."

"It is not that," said Constance, answering in spite of
herself, after delaying as long as she dared.

"There is the brightness that is only the reflection of
outward circumstances, and passes away with them."

"It isn't that in Fleda Ringgan," said Constance, "for her
outward circumstances have no brightness, I should think, that
reflection would not utterly absorb."

She would fain have turned the conversation, but the questions
were put so lightly and quietly that it could not be
gracefully done. She longed to cut it short, but her hand was
upon Mr. Carleton's arm, and they were slowly sauntering down
the rooms — too pleasant a state of things to be relinquished
for a trifle.