Certainly the women smiled upon him; and his strange face, thinner,
browner, more weather-beaten and life-beaten than ever, under its crest
of grizzling hair, had the old arrogant and picturesque power, but, as
it seemed to her, with something added--something subtler, was it, more
romantic than of yore? which arrested the spectator. Had he really been
in love with that French woman? Lady Tranmore had heard it rumored that
she was dead.
It was not towards Mary Lyster, primarily, that he was moving, Elizabeth
soon discovered; it was towards herself. She braced herself for the
encounter.
The greeting was soon over. After she herself had said the appropriate
things, Lady Tranmore had time to notice that Mary Lyster, whose turn
came next, did not attempt to say them. She looked, indeed, unusually
handsome and animated; Lady Tranmore was certain that Cliffe had noticed
as much, at his first sight of her. But the remarks she omitted showed
how minute and recent was their knowledge of each other's movements.
Cliffe himself gave a first impression of high spirits. He declared that
London was more agreeable than he had ever known it, and that after his
three years' absence nobody looked a day older.
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