Jason | Page 7

to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." They counted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he was to be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking toward the doorway. "Here he comes now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is the Spanish-looking man with him, I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn't he?"
Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in his turn. He said:
"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." Miss Benham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his way through the joyous greetings of friends toward his hostess.
"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste. Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and that sort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"
"Ye-es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently beau gar?on. But--yes--well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get the idea that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic young squire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very fine qualities. To be sure, he appears to possess no ambition in particular, but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house, and there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing but faithfulness and gallantry and honor. And there is, I think, no blot upon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak so strongly of any one, I think."
The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and he laughed.
"Oh, well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him for the first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a young man is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, that young man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste. Marie. In a sense, that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy for him. His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his view of the heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitude or misfortune or grief. Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently--"or perhaps the other thing might do it best--the more obvious thing?"
The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him, and when he did not answer, she said:
"What thing, then?"
"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said to work miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah, he is coming here!"
The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman with a deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in her wake. She said:
"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me and cherish him! I believe he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" She beamed over her shoulder and departed, and Miss Benham found herself confronted by the Spanish-looking man. Her first thought was that he was not as handsome as he had seemed at a distance, but something much better. For a young man she thought his face was rather oddly weather-beaten, as if he might have been very much at sea, and it was too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked his eyes, which were not brown or black, as she had expected, but a very unusual dark gray--a sort of slate color. And she liked his mouth, too, while disapproving of the fierce little upturned mustache which seemed to her a bit operatic. It was her habit--and it is not an unreliable habit--to judge people by their eyes and mouths. Ste. Marie's mouth pleased her because the lips were neither thin nor thick, they were not drawn into an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they did not pout as so many Latin lips do, and they had at one corner a humorous expression which she found curiously agreeable.
"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters. How does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouth twitched, and he grinned at her.
Miss Benham did not approve of young men who began an acquaintance in this very familiar manner. She thought that there was a certain preliminary and more formal stage which ought to be got through with first, but Ste, Marie's grin was irresistible. In spite of herself, she found that she was laughing.
"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn't it? Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at