You know what I mean, very
well. Now, how do you like my son?"
"Oh, very much indeed; he is a little satirical, though, now and then;
intolerant of youthful greenness, I perceive, and enthusiasm."
"All affectation, I assure you. He is as verdant himself as the Emerald
Isle. Just from college, and very young; what can he know of life? As to
enthusiasm, he is full of it."
"True, what _can_ he know of life," I mused, and I glanced at him, as I
questioned, sitting in front of Evelyn in a sort of humble, devoted
way, very different from his easy, knightly air with me. She wore a
cold, imperious expression of face not unbecoming to her haughty style
of beauty, and fanned herself gently as she listened carelessly to his
evidently earnest words, bowing superciliously in answer from time to
time.
"The desire of the moth for the star," burst from my lips involuntarily.
"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Bainrothe, quietly. "If Evelyn Erie were
the last of her sex, _he_ never could fancy _her_. She is much too old
for my son, much too artificial; and, beautiful as she is, she wants
some nameless charm, without which no woman ever secures the abiding
love of man;" adding, abruptly, after a little pause, "_That charm is
yours, Miriam_."
"How strangely you talk, Mr. Bainrothe!" I replied, with evident
embarrassment, which he pretended not to perceive.
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