She, on her part, had been busy satisfying herself that he was a very
presentable young man, in spite of the somewhat formidable reputation
he wore as a person of learned attainments. There could be no better
way to show him to you than through her eyes, so you must know that she
saw a man of less than thirty years, with a figure slight and not
over-tall but well-proportioned, and with a complexion as dark as hers
was light. His eyes, indeed, were a very dark grey, and his hair was
black, and his face and hands had been coloured by the sun and wind
until the tan had become indelible, almost, so that his prolonged
periods of studious indoor seclusion worked little toward lightening
it. If his looks attracted, it was not because he was handsome, for
that he wasn't, but because of certain signs of strength to be
discerned in his face, as well as an engaging manner which he owned by
right of ancestry, his ascendants for several generations having been
notable representatives of one of the First Families of Virginia. Amber
was not inordinately proud of this fact, at least not more so than nine
out of any ten Virginians; but his friends--who were many but mostly
male--claimed that he wrote "F.F.V." before the "F.R.S." which he was
entitled to inscribe after his name.

The pause which fell upon the girl's use of his name, and during which
they looked one another over, was sufficiently prolonged to excuse the
reference to it which Amber chose to make.

"I'm sure," he said with his slow smile, "that we're satisfied we've
never met before. Aren't we?"

"Quite," assented the girl.

"That only makes it the more mysterious, of course."