I looked more
than I listened. I had been starved for a sight of her. And my eyes must
have told my thoughts; for a flush crept into her cheeks, and her lashes
fluttered, and she looked not at me, but across the swan-dotted lake
toward the towers of Raincy-la-Tour.
After all there was little that I had not guessed already; but each
detail held its magic, because it was she who spoke. If she had said "I
like oranges and lemons," the statement would have held me spellbound.
I sat raptly gazing while she told me of herself and her sister Enid;
of their life, after the death of their parents, with an aunt whose home
was in Pittsburgh, of their travels; and of a winter at Nice, four years
ago, when the blue of the skies and seas and the whiteness of the sands
and the green of the palms had all seemed created to frame the meeting
and the love affair of Enid Falconer and the young nobleman who was now
known to the world as the Firefly of France.
Their marriage had proved an ideal one, as happy as it was brilliant.
Esme, thereafter had spent half her time in Europe with her sister, half
in America with her aunt, who was growing old.
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