Romance tells of Andalusian beauty, of Catalonian grace--and in
sober British earnest (a solid thing) there are few more beautiful
women than high-born Spanish ladies. Eve Challoner had caught
something--some trick of the head--which belongs to Spain alone.
Her eyes had a certain northern vivacity of glance, a small
something which is noticeable enough in Southern Europe, though we
should hardly observe it in England, for it means education. In the
matter of learning, be it noted in passing, the ladies of the
Peninsula are not so very far above their duskier sisters of the
harem farther east.

The girl's eyes were dull now, with a sort of surprised anguish, for
sorrow had come to her before its time. The man lying on the bed
before her had not reached the limit of his years. Quite suddenly,
twelve hours before, he had complained of a numb feeling in his
head, and the voice he spoke in was thick and strange. In a
surprisingly short time Edward Challoner was no longer himself--no
longer the cynical, polished gentleman of the world--but a hard-
breathing, inert deformity, hardly human. From that time to this he
had never spoken, and Heaven knew there was enough for him to say.
Death had caught him unawares as, after all, he generally does catch
us. There were several things to set in order as usual; for it is
only in books and on the stage that folks make a graceful exit,
clearing up the little mystery, forgiving the wrongs, boasting with
feeble voice of the good they have done--with lowering tone and soft
music slowly working together to the prompter's bell. It is not in
real life that dying men find much time to prattle about their own
souls. They usually want all their breath for those they leave
behind. And who knows! Perhaps those waiting on the other side