blush on the clear pale cheek, a soft yet playful light in the grave
dark-blue eyes, which had not been visible in the countenance of the
young lady in the pearl-coloured robe. Graham did not hear Louvier's
reply, though no doubt it was loud enough for him to hear. He sank again
into revery. Other guests now came into the room, among them Frank
Morley, styled Colonel,--eminent military titles in the United States do
not always denote eminent military services,--a wealthy American, and his
sprightly and beautiful wife. The Colonel was a clever man, rather stiff
in his deportment, and grave in speech, but by no means without a vein of
dry humour. By the French he was esteemed a high-bred specimen of the
kind of grand seigneur which democratic republics engender. He spoke
French like a Parisian, had an imposing presence, and spent a great deal
of money with the elegance of a man of taste and the generosity of a man
of heart. His high breeding was not quite so well understood by the
English, because the English are apt to judge breeding by little
conventional rules not observed by the American Colonel. He had a slight
nasal twang, and introduced "sir" with redundant ceremony in addressing
Englishmen, however intimate he might be with them, and had the habit
(perhaps with a sly intention to startle or puzzle them) of adorning his
style of conversation with quaint Americanisms.

Nevertheless, the genial amiability and the inherent dignity of his
character made him acknowledged as a thorough gentleman by every
Englishman, however conventional in tastes, who became admitted into his
intimate acquaintance.

Mrs. Morley, ten or twelve years younger than her husband, had no nasal
twang, and employed no Americanisms in her talk, which was frank, lively,
and at times eloquent. She had a great ambition to be esteemed of a
masculine understanding; Nature unkindly frustrated that ambition in