ps; "she's been in Paris, your Paris."

The gentleman's ivory-tinted fingers removed the cigar from his lips.
As he turned the western light fell on his lean, clean-shaven face,
thin-flanked beneath high cheek-bones. From between grey brows thick
as a finger rose a Louis Philippe nose, its Roman prominence
accentuated by the hollowness of the cheeks. The iron-grey hair,
thrown back off the face, fell, square-cut, to the coat collar behind.

Never a word spoke the gentleman, only, cigar in hand, waited,
eagle-countenanced, sphinx-like. Yet straight Alexina came to his
side, and her baby eyes, quick to dilate, now confidingly calm, met
the ones looking out piercingly from their retreat beneath the heavy
brows, and quite as a matter of course a little hand rested on his
knee as she stood there, and equally as naturally, his face impassive,
did the fingers of the gentleman close upon it.

A silent compact, silently entered into, for before a word was
interchanged the animated contralto of the lady came down from above.
"Who is the little girl, son? What is your name, dear?"

Son's wince was visible. He had no knowledge of the little girl's
name, but he did not want to say so.

But she was answering for herself, looking up at the pretty lady,
dressed as though for a party. "It's Mary Alexina Blair," she was
saying, "but my Aunt Harriet says it's to be just Alexina now."

"Oh," said the lady. There was a little silence before she spoke
again. "It must be Alexander Blair's child, Georges. Come up, dear,
and let me see you."

But King William, balancing himself on the back of his father's chair,
objected. "Hurry, then, mother," he demanded; "we want to play."

But Alexina had gone up the steps obediently. The eyes of the lady
were dark and slumbrous, but in them was the slightly helpless look of
short vision. She drew the child close for inspection.

The fair hair, the even brows, the clear-gazing eyes she seemed to
have expected, but the dilation in those same wondering eyes raised to
hers, the short upper-lip, the full under one that trembled--these the
lady did not know. "A sensitiveness, a warmth," she said, half aloud.
What did she mean? Then she raised her voice.

"See, Willy Leroy, how she stands for me, while you pull away if I so
much as lay my hand on you."

"But you look so close," objected Willy, "and you fix my hair, and you
say my collar ain't straight. You've seen her now, mother; you've seen
her clo