She stood looking up at him, smiling a little timidly, her teeth glinting through parted lips, her eyes star-fire, her cheeks blazoning gules in his honor; she seemed not to breathe at all. A faint twinge woke in the Duke of Ormskirk's heart. Most women smiled upon him, but they smiled beneath furtive eyes, sometimes beneath rapacious eyes, and many smiled with reddened lips which strove, uneasily, to provoke a rental; how long was it he wondered, simply, since any woman had smiled as Marian smiled now, for him?
From the vantage of the yew-hedge, "I would to Heaven I could think so, too," observed her father.
The younger people had passed out of sight. But from the rear of the hedge came to the Duke and Lord Brudenel, staring blankly at each other across the paper-littered table, a sort of duet. First tenor, then contralto, then tenor again,--and so on, with many long intervals of silence, during which you heard the plashing of the fountain, grown doubly audible, and, it might be, the sharp, plaintive cry of a bird intensified by the stillness.
"But you have not kissed the littlest finger of all. See, it is quite stiff with indignation."
"They are green, and brown, and yellow--O Marian, there are little gold specks in them like those in _eau de Dantzig_! They are quite wonderful eyes, Marian. And your hair is all streaky gold-and-brown. You should not have two colors in your hair, Marian. Marian, did any one ever tell you that you are very beautiful?"
Silence. "Pee-weet!" said a bird. "Tweet?"
And Marian replied: "I am devoted to Dorothy, of course, but I have never admired her fashion of making advances to every man she meets. Yes, she does."
"Nay, 'twas only her money that lured me, to do her justice. It appeared so very sensible to marry an heiress.... But how can any man be sensible so long as he is haunted by the memory of your eyes? For see how bright they are,--see, here in the water. Two stars have fallen into the fountain, Marian."
"You are handsomer so. Your nose is too short, but here in the fountain you are quite handsome--"
"I wonder how many other women's fingers you have kissed--like that. Ah, don't tell me, Humphrey! Humphrey, promise me that you will always lie to me when I ask you about those other women. Lie to me, my dear, and I will know that you are lying and love you all the better for it.... You should not have told me about Dorothy. How often did you kiss all of Dorothy's finger-tips one by one, in just that foolish, dear way?"