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She saw herself dancing with him, saw the half-troubled smile she would give him; and she accurately smiled that smile as she rinsed the knives and forks. These hopeful fragments of drama were not to be realized, she knew; but she played that they were true, and went on creating them.
For some time after finishing Neil's letter Bessie staid by the window, very still and thoughtful, with a half-pleased, half-troubled look in her young face. She was thinking of Neil's projected visit, and planning how she could make him comfortable, and his friend.
The stranger paused, apparently bewildered by this turmoil. He was a stalwart, rather handsome man, bearded and bronzed as if through long exposure. And in his walk there was a suggestion of that rolling gait which smacks of maritime pursuits. He proceeded aimlessly up Market street, gazing round him, still with that odd, half-doubting and half-troubled manner.
"Oh!" she replied, in a half-troubled, half-indignant tone, for she was out of touch with the occasion of his suit, and every woman has in her mind the time when she should and when she should not be wooed. "Oh, why aren't you plain with me? I hate enigmas." "Why do I not speak plainly?
"Alice," he said, in a vague, half-troubled way, "the man is a Belward, I think." "Why, of course!" the girl replied with a flash of excitement. "But he's so dark, and foreign-looking! What Belward is he?" "I do not know yet, my dear." "I shall be up when you come back. But mind, don't leave just after dinner. Stay and talk; you must tell me everything that's said and done and about the stranger."
"Oh!" she replied, in a half-troubled, half-indignant tone, for she was out of touch with the occasion of his suit, and every woman has in her mind the time when she should and when she should not be wooed. "Oh, why aren't you plain with me? I hate enigmas." "Why do I not speak plainly?
All the time he was speaking his fork was busy clearing the stalls of their litter, and, at the finish, he leant on the haft of it and quizzically smiled into the girl's beautiful, half-troubled face. Joan contemplated protesting, but somehow his manner was so friendly, so frank and honest, that she felt it would be ungracious of her.
The manner of the husband and father whose wife, only six weeks before, had become the mother of twin babies beautiful boys and who for Cordula's sake so shamefully forgot his duties, crimsoned her cheeks with a flush of anger, while the half-disapproving, half-troubled look that Sir Boemund Altrosen cast, sometimes at the countess, sometimes at Siebenburg, showed her that she herself was on the eve of doing something which the best persons could not approve; for Altrosen, who leaned silently against the wall beside the countess, ever and anon pushing back the coal-black hair from his pale face, had been mentioned by her godfather as the noblest of the younger knights gathered in Nuremberg.
The manner of the husband and father whose wife, only six weeks before, had become the mother of twin babies beautiful boys and who for Cordula's sake so shamefully forgot his duties, crimsoned her cheeks with a flush of anger, while the half-disapproving, half-troubled look that Sir Boemund Altrosen cast, sometimes at the countess, sometimes at Siebenburg, showed her that she herself was on the eve of doing something which the best persons could not approve; for Altrosen, who leaned silently against the wall beside the countess, ever and anon pushing back the coal-black hair from his pale face, had been mentioned by her godfather as the noblest of the younger knights gathered in Nuremberg.
She was less like the portrait now than a moment earlier; her lips, just parting in a little half-longing, half-troubled smile, were like dark rose leaves damp with dew, her eyelids drooped at the corners for an instant, and the translucent little nostrils quivered at the mysterious thrill that stirred her maiden being.
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