singular, a mysterious interest just beginning--of that peculiar kind
which becomes at last terribly absorbing.

I was more elated by her trifling notice of me than I can quite account
for. It was a distinction. She was so indescribably handsome--so
passively disdainful. I think if she had listened to me with even the
faintest intimation of caring whether I spoke in this tone or not, with
even a flash of momentary resentment, I might have rushed into a most
reprehensible and ridiculous rigmarole.

In this, the subtlest and most perilous of all intoxications, it needs
immense presence of mind to conduct ourselves always with decorum. But
she was looking, just as before, at the miniature, as it seemed to me, in
fancy infusing some of the spirit I had described into the artist's
record, and she said, only in soliloquy, as it were, 'Yes, I see--I
_think_ I see.'

So there was a pause; and then she said, without, however, removing her
eyes from the miniature, 'You are, I believe, Mr. De Cresseron, a very
old friend of Mr. Wylder's. Is it not so?'

So soon after my little escapade, I did not like the question; but it was
answered. There was not the faintest trace of a satirical meaning,
however, in her face; and after another very considerable interval, at
the end of which she shut the miniature in its case, she said, 'It was a
peculiar face, and very beautiful. It is odd how many of our family
married for love--wild love-matches. My poor mother was the last. I could
point you out many pictures, and tell you stories--my cousin, Rachel,
knows them all. You know Rachel Lake?'