On this occasion she was unwontedly sweet and gentle, with a new pensiveness in her manner more attractive to Devereaux than her usual brilliancy. She made no bids for his attention; she seemed sadly resigned to her fate, as her downcast eyes and stifled sighs attested. It touched him, but he felt too sad at heart to console others, and he soon tore himself away, returning that night to Boston, wondering if it could be possible, that the same city had held Liane all this time that he had supposed her safe at Stonecliff.
He knew that Malcolm Dean was in Philadelphia, and had been there for some time, and he wondered if the artist's love for Liane had failed to realize her confident hopes.
"Poor little thing! I pity her, with her sweet love dream blighted!" he thought generously, as he awakened early the next morning, pursuing the same sad train of thought.
A startling surprise awaited him after breakfast, where Lyde was sitting going over the new magazines.
Her dark eyes brightened suddenly, as she exclaimed:
"Upon my word, Jesse, the beautiful face on the outside cover of this magazine resembles perfectly the pretty girl from whom I buy my gloves!"
"Really!" he exclaimed, taking the magazine, and flushing and paling alternately, as he saw before him the cover that Dean had designed, with Liane's face for the central figure.
How beautiful it was? How beautiful! His heart leaped madly, then sank again in his breast.
"Do you think it can be accidental, or is it really her portrait? She is lovely, Jesse, with a natural, high-bred air, the darkest eyes, like purple pansies rimmed in jet, and the most beautiful chestnut hair, all touched with gleams of gold. I have woven quite a romance round her, fancying her some rich girl reduced to poverty."
His heart was beating with muffled throbs, his eyes flashed with eagerness, but he asked with seeming carelessness:
He was not in the least surprised when she answered:
"Miss Lester, and the other girls call her Liane. It is a pretty name, and, oddly enough, I read it once in a novel. She must have been named from it; don't you think, Jesse?"
He could hardly speak, he was so excited, and Lyde rambled on:
"We have fallen in love with each other, pretty Liane and I. She always hurries to meet me and show me her gloves. Her eyes smile at me so tenderly, as if she were really fond of me, and I almost believe she is, for when I allow her to try on my gloves for me, she has such a caressing way, I almost long to kiss her. But then, perhaps, she has the same manner with all, just to get trade," disappointedly.