First of all, generous!--look
at your mouth, which God first fashions, then leaves for us to make or
mar. Second, your eyes--sincere! for though you blush like a maiden,
Carus, your eyes are steady to the eyes that punish. Third, dogged!
spite of the fierce impatience that sets your chiseled nose a-quiver at
the nostrils. There! Am I not a very gipsy for a fortune? Read me,
now."

After a long silence I said, "I can not."

"Truly?"

"Truly. I can not read you, Elsin."

She opened her palm and held her fingers, one by one, frowning in an
effort to be just: "First, I am a fool; second, I am a fool; third, I
am a fool; fourth----"

I caught her hand, and she looked at me with a charming laugh.

"I _am_," she insisted, her hand resting in mine.

"Why?"

"Why, because I--I am in love with Walter Butler--and--and I never
liked a man as well as I like you!"

I was astounded. She sighed, slowly shaking her head. "That is it, you
see. Love is very different from having a good time. He is so proud, so
sad, so buried in noble melancholy, so darkly handsome, and all afire
with passion--which advances him not a whit with me nor commends him to
my mercy--only when he stands before me, his dark golden eyes lost in
delicious melancholy; then, _then_, Carus, I know that it must be love I
feel; but it is not a very cheerful sentiment." She sighed again,
picking up her fan with one hand--I held the other.

"Now, with you--and I have scarce known you a dozen hours--it is so
charming, so pleasant and cheerful--and I like you so much, Carus!--oh,
the sentiment I entertain for you is far pleasanter than love. Have you
ever been in love?"

"I am, Elsin--almost."

"Almost? Mercy on us! What will the lady say to 'almost'?"

"God knows," I said, smiling.

"Good!" she said approvingly; "leave her in God's care, and practise on
me to perfect your courtship. I like it, really I do. It is strange,
too," she mused, with a tender smile of reminiscence, "for I have never
let Captain Butler so much as touch my hand. But discretion, you see,
is love; isn't it? So if I am so indiscreet with you, what harm is
there?"

"Are you unhappy away from him?" I asked.

"No, only when with him. He seems to wring my heart--I don't know why,
but, oh, I do so pity him!"

"Are you--plighted?"

"Oh, dear me, yes--but secretly. Ah, I should not have told you
that!--but there you are, Carus; and I do believe that I could tell you
everything I know