If I went out in the gloaming to smoke a cigar, as I liked best to do among the sighs of the roses, in a few minutes that beautiful, fair face was sure to be smiling at my side.  She had a pretty, picturesque way of throwing a black lace shawl over her shoulders and of draping it round her head, so making her face look a thousand times more fair.

She would come to me with that graceful, easy, dignified walk of hers and say: 

“If I am not intruding, Sir Edgar, I should enjoy a few minutes with you.”

She had a wonderful gift of conversation—­piquant, sparkling and intellectual.  If I had been the dullest of the dull, I should have known that such a woman would not pass her life as a companion unless she had some wonderful end in view.  She was far too brilliant.  She would have made a good ambassadress, for she could make herself all things to all men.  No matter what subject interested you, on that she could speak.  She seemed to understand every one intuitively; one’s likes, dislikes, tastes.  She had a wondrous power of reading character.  She was worldly with the worldly, good with the good, romantic with the young, sensible with the old.  To me she was always the same.  Sometimes, when I saw her coming to meet me along those paths where the rose leaves lay dead, I felt inclined to go away and leave her; but natural politeness came to my aid.  Then when she had talked to me for a few minutes, a strange, subtle charm would steal over me.

I knew her well-chosen compliments were all flattery.  I knew she was pursuing me for some object of her own.  Yet that charm no words can describe was stronger than my reason.  Away from her I disliked her; my judgment was all against her; in her presence no man could help being fascinated.

I thank Heaven that I had the shield of a pure and holy love; I was but a weak man, and nothing else saved me.  If there came a wet day, or one that was not pleasant for walking, she had a thousand ways of making time fly.  She played billiards as well as any man; she read aloud more beautifully and perfectly than I have ever heard any one else.  She made every room she entered cheerful; she had a fund of anecdote that never seemed to be exhausted.

But the time she liked best for weaving her spells was after sunset, before the lamps were lighted.

“You are fond of music, Sir Edgar,” she would say to me.  “Come, and I will sing you some songs I used to sing years ago.”

And she did sing.  Listening to her, I could well believe in the far-famed Orpheus lute.  It was enough to bewilder any man.  She had a sweet, rich voice, a contralto of no ordinary merit, and the way in which she used it was something never to be forgotten.

There was a deep bay-window in the drawing-room, my favorite nook; from it there was a splendid view of waving trees and blooming flowers.  She would place my chair there for me and then sing until she sung my senses away.  There was such power, such pathos, such passion, in her voice that no one could listen to it unmoved.