Westonhaugh beside him
looked washed-out and deathly, Kildare was too coarsely healthy, and
Ghyrkins and I, representing different types of extreme plainness,
served as foils to all three.
I watched Miss Westonhaugh while Isaacs was speaking. She had evidently
heard the whole story, for her expression showed beforehand the emotion
she expected to feel at each point. Her colour came and went softly, and
her eyes brightened with a warm light beneath the dark brows that
contrasted so strangely yet delightfully with the mass of flaxen-white
hair. She wore something dark and soft, cut square at the neck, and a
plain circlet of gold was her only ornament. She was a beautiful
creature, certainly; one of those striking-looking women of whom
something is always expected, until they drop quietly out of youth into
middle age, and the world finds out that they are, after all, not
heroines of romance, but merely plain, honest, good women; good wives
and good mothers who love their homes and husbands well, though it has
pleased nature in some strange freak to give them the form and feature
of a Semiramis, a Cleopatra, or a Jeanne d'Arc.
"Dear me, how very interesting!" exclaimed Mr. Ghyrkins, looking up from
his hill mutton as Isaacs finished, and a little murmur of sympathetic
applause went round the table.
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