She laughed, and said, ’I suppose I must begin with his forehead then.  It was almost of the tone of marble, and contrasted, but not too violently, with the thin crop of dark hair slightly curling round the temples, which were partly bald.  The forehead in its form was so perfect that it seemed to shed its own beauty over all the other features; it prevented me from noticing, as I afterwards did, that these other features—­the features below the eyes, were not in themselves beautiful.  The eyes, which looked at me through spectacles, were of a colour between hazel and blue-grey, but there were lights shining within them which were neither grey, nor hazel, nor blue—­wonderful lights.  And it was to these indescribable lights, moving and alive in the deeps of the pupils, that his face owed its extraordinary attractiveness.  Have I sufficiently described him? or am I to go on taking his face to pieces for you?’

‘Go on, Winnie—­pray go on.’

’Well, then, between the eyes, across the top of the nose, where the bridge of the spectacles rested, there was a strongly marked indented line which had the appearance of having been made by long-continued pressure of the spectacle frame.  Am I still to go on?’

‘Yes, yes.’

’The beauty of the face, as I said before, was entirely confined to the upper portion.  It did not extend lower than the cheek-bones, which were well shaped.’

’The mouth, Winnie?  Describe that, and then I need not ask you his name, though perhaps you don’t know it yourself.’

’A dark brown moustache covered the mouth.  I have always thought that a mouth is unattractive if the lips are so close to the teeth that they seem to stick to them; and yet what a kind woman Mrs. Shales is, and her mouth is of this kind.  But, on the other hand, where the space between the teeth and the lips is too great no mouth can be called beautiful, I think.  Now though the mouth of the gentleman was not ill-cut, the lips were too far from the teeth, I thought; they were too loose, a little baggy, in short.  And when he laughed—­’

‘What about that, Winnie?  I specially want to know about his laugh.’

’Then I will tell you.  When he laughed his teeth were a little too much seen; and this gave the mouth a somewhat satirical expression.’

‘Winnie,’ I said, ’there is no need now for you to tell me the name of the gentleman.  In a few sentences you have described him better than I could have done in a hundred.’

’And certainly there is no reason why I should not tell you his name,’ she said, laughing, ’for if there is a word that is musical in my ears, it is the name of him whose voice is music—­D’Arcy.  When he told me that I should know everything in time, and that there was nothing for me to know except that which would give me comfort, and said, “You confide in me!” I could only answer, “Who would not confide in you?  I will wait patiently until you tell me what you have to tell.”