She wanted to break
out into singing, so sweet is the delight of new love unrecognized save
as simple joy in living.
The entrance of Mehitabel with the card of Mr. Stanford brought her
back to earth.
"Already?" she said, feeling as if she were defrauded that thus her
moment of enjoyment was cut short.
She could not trust herself for more than a word of excuse to Wynne,
but hurried to her chamber to collect her thoughts and to examine her
toilet before she descended to her visitor. Some inward personality
seemed to be trying properly to frame the speech by which she should
make Stanford understand that it was idle for him to hope longer; while
all the time she was thinking of the man whom she had just left.
Stanford was holding out his hands to the blaze in the fireplace when
she entered the parlor, for the morning was a sharp one. Berenice saw
with appreciation how satisfactory he was in all his appointments and
in his bearing; how well kept and how well bred. She felt, however, for
the first time that he was perhaps a little too faultlessly attired for
a man, and she glanced at his cleanly shaven cheek with an acute memory
of the stout black stubble on the face she had left behind her, yet
carried still in the eye of her mind.
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