And lovable she was indeed. The world is filled with charming people whom, parenthetically, many of us never meet; yet, however scant our list may be, there are moments when from Memory's gardens a vision issues we would fain detain. Who is there to whom that vision has not come? Nay, who is there that has not intercepted it, and, to the heart's perdition perhaps, suffered it to retreat? If there be any to whom such apparitions are unvouchsafed, let him evoke that woman whom he would like his sister to resemble and his wife to be. Then, if his intuitions are acute, there will appear before him one who has turned sympathy into a garment and taken refinement for a wreath; a woman just yet debonair, thoughtful of others, true to herself; a woman whose speech can weary no more than can a star, whose mind is clean as wholesome fruit, whose laugh is infrequent, and whose voice consoles; a woman who makes the boor chivalrous, and the chivalrous bend the knee. Such an one did Justine Dunellen seem. In person she was tall, slender, willowy of movement, with just that shrinking graciousness that the old masters gave to certain figures which they wished to represent as floating off the canvas into space.
And now, as Roland joined her, she smiled and greeted him. With her was a lady to whom she turned:
And Roland found himself bowing to a little old woman elaborately dressed. She was, he presently discovered, a feather-head person, who gave herself the airs of a _princesse en couches_. But though not the rose, at least she dwelt near by. Her husband was Mr. Dunellen's partner; and to Justine, particularly since the death of her mother, she had become what the Germans, who have many a neat expression, term a _Wahlverwandtschaft_--a relation not of blood, but of choice. She was feather-headed, but she was a lady; she was absurd, but she was lovable; and by Justine she was evidently beloved.
Roland got her a seat, found a footstool for her, and pleased her very much by the interest which he displayed in her family tree.
"I knew all your people," she announced at last. And when she did so, her manner was so gracious that Roland felt the hour had not been thrown away.
During the rest of the day he managed to be frequently in her vicinity. The better part of the morrow he succeeded in sharing with Justine. And in the evening, when the latter bade him good-night, it occurred to him that if what Jones had said in regard to the cousin was true, then was the cousin losing ground.