Mrs. Liversedge, with a sense of the fitness of things, had given
a musical tea in his honour. Later in the course of this function, which
Soames, no musician, had regarded as an unmitigated bore, his eye had
been caught by the face of a girl dressed in mourning, standing by
herself. The lines of her tall, as yet rather thin figure, showed
through the wispy, clinging stuff of her black dress, her black-gloved
hands were crossed in front of her, her lips slightly parted, and her
large, dark eyes wandered from face to face. Her hair, done low on
her neck, seemed to gleam above her black collar like coils of shining
metal. And as Soames stood looking at her, the sensation that most men
have felt at one time or another went stealing through him--a peculiar
satisfaction of the senses, a peculiar certainty, which novelists and
old ladies call love at first sight. Still stealthily watching her, he
at once made his way to his hostess, and stood doggedly waiting for the
music to cease.
"Who is that girl with yellow hair and dark eyes?" he asked.
"That--oh! Irene Heron. Her father, Professor Heron, died this year.
She lives with her stepmother. She's a nice girl, a pretty girl, but no
money!"
"Introduce me, please," said Soames.
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