At last she placed the picture in my hand, and asked--

'Is this really very like her?'

'It is, and it is _not_,' I said, after a little pause. 'The features are
true: it is what I call an accurate portrait, but that is all. I dare
say, exact as it is, it would give to one who had not seen her a false,
as it must an inadequate, idea, of the original. There was something
_naive_ and _spirituel_, and very tender in her face, which he has not
caught--perhaps it could hardly be fixed in colours.'

'Yes, I always heard her expression and intelligence were very beautiful.
It was the beauty of mobility--true beauty.'

'There is a beauty of another stamp, equally exquisite, Miss Brandon, and
perhaps more overpowering.' I said this in nearly a whisper, and in a
very marked way, almost tender, and the next moment was amazed at my own
audacity. She looked on me for a second or two, with her dark drowsy
glance, and then it returned to the picture, which was again in her hand.
There was a total want of interest in the careless sort of surprise she
vouchsafed my little sally; neither was there the slightest resentment.
If a wafer had been stuck upon my forehead, and she had observed it,
there might have been just that look and no more. I was ridiculously
annoyed with myself. I was betrayed, I don't know how, into this little
venture, and it was a flat failure. The position of a shy man, who has
just made an unintelligible joke at a dinner-table, was not more pregnant
with self-reproach and embarrassment.

Upon my honour, I don't think there was anything of the _roue_ in me. I
own I did feel towards this lady, who either was, or seemed to me, so