Ainslee's Magazine, February 1913 — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE BEAST creet those whose heart-to-heart af- fairs Cupid is always anxiously en- gaged in screening from the eyes of the passing stranger. Suddenly, as we made a sharp turn to the left, the colonel and I halted. Be- yond, hidden by the matted leaves a few yards ahead, two people were in sharp and earnest conversation, a man and a woman. Only the fragments of two sentences 1n a man’s voice reached us: “A thousand guineas,’ and, a second later, “Same address, you Then an abrupt pause, quick as the intake of a breath, and then the soft, merry, teas- ing voice of a woman: ‘“N-n-no! No! No! Not another kiss! Not even one.” “Please,” pleaded the other. “I say, mayn’t I?” “Dear! What a little gourmand you are!” Then a short, intense silence, during which brief interval the colonel cocked his eye and we stood motionless, hesi- tating whether to retreat or advance. Again the voice of the woman: “Ah, you silly, silly boy! Look at me! I love your eyes; what am I to do ‘with you? There! That is the last. The very, very last. Oui, monsieur!” A rippling laugh. “Say, ‘Thank you, ma’am!’ ” “Thank you, ma’am! I say, but you are adorable.” To third persons like ourselves this sudden and sentimental dialogue seemed strangely forced, and as artificial as the lines in a comedy. “Come along,” whispered the colo- nel, rapidly striding ahead with as much caution as if he had accidentally stum- bled on a wounded tigress and her kit- ten. Too late! Beyond, not ten paces ahead, we drew aside, much to the colo- nel’s evident embarrassment, to let two | figures pass—those of Mrs. Mawlyn and young Cyril Reeves. She, with her quick intuition of a woman, had scented our presence, and was already laughing over an imaginary nothing. As we drew aside and raised our hats in a formal good morning, Mrs. Mawlyn lowered her eyes, return- 143 ing our greeting with strained dignity, © and, as if through her sense of humor, or her own embarrassment, passed me with the vestige of a smile playing about the nervous corners of her sly little mouth—all pink and pearls when she opened it to laugh. Mr. Cyril Reeves, taken for the mo- ment off his guard, dropped his mon- ocle, and, with a bored grimace, recov- ered it at the end of its black silk rib- bon, and resolutely set it back, tucking it in firmly over his round, boyish eye, and regarded us with a flush of color, mingled with a look of devil-may-care disdain, while I kept my eyes on Mrs. Mawlyn, who looked as fresh as a young girl this morning, her lithe figure gowned in a simple frock of pale-rose liberty silk, her small, blond head shaded by a broad garden hat circled with moss roses, beneath which gleamed her wonderful eyes, large and almond- shaped as an Oriental’s, and, I give you my word, positively green at times. That liquid green of jade, with the saffron fire of a cat’s eye glinting about the cornea. Again, especially at night, whether it was due to the reflected light from her exquisite, bare neck, the color of ivory, or purely the effect of the elec- tricity, I do not know, but I could have sworn her eyes were deep violet, their long lashes, in marked contrast to her fair hair, giving her the appearance of a blond Italian, though she was as Eng- lish as the colonel. This half-Oriental, half-Italian cast to her finely chiseled features—the head of a swallow in its trimness with the complexion of a tea rose—was further enhanced by the long pendant earrings which she invariably wore, sometimes of jade or barraque pearls or fire opals.. She seemed to have a passion for earrings, and changed them constantly, decking the lobes of her small ears with a new pair almost daily. As for young Reeves, whom we watched as he disappeared around a bend in the path at her trim heels, it was easily seen how jealously proud the woman was of this well-built, hand- some, dark-haired, dark-eyed, fair- skinned English boy, who had in the (C@) AMUC VNOOLK (C@