but all the softness of expression that was wanted, all the gentle and gracious timidity that we associate with maidenhood, lay in the large, and dark, and lustrous eyes.  When, by accident, she turned aside, and he saw the outline of that clear, olive-complexioned face, only broken by the outward curve of the long black lashes, he had to confess to himself that, adventuress or no adventuress, prophetess or no prophetess, Natalie Lind was possessed of about the most beautiful profile he had ever beheld, while she had the air and the bearing of a queen.

Her father and he talked of the various trifling things of the moment; but what he was chiefly thinking of was the singular calm and self-possession of this young girl.  When she spoke, her dark, soft eyes regarded him without fear.  Her manner was simple and natural to the last degree; perhaps with the least touch added of maidenly reserve.  He was forced even to admire the simplicity of her dress—­cream or canary white it was, with a bit of white fur round the neck and round the tight wrists.  The only strong color was that of the scarlet geraniums which she wore in her bosom, and in the splendid masses of her hair; and the vertical sharp line of scarlet of her closed fan.

Once only, during this interval of waiting, did he find that calm serenity of hers disturbed.  He happened to observe the photograph of a very handsome woman near him on the table.  She told him she had had a parcel of photographs of friends of hers just sent over from Vienna:  some of them very pretty.  She went to another table, and brought over a handful.  He glanced at them only a second or two.

“I see they are mostly from Vienna:  are they Austrian ladies?” he asked.

“They live in Austria, but they are not Austrians,” she answered.  And then she added, with a touch of scorn about the beautiful mouth, “Our friends and we don’t belong to the women-floggers!”

“Natalie!” her father said; but he smiled all the same.

“I will tell you one of my earliest recollections,” she said:  “I remember it very well.  Kossuth was carrying me round the room on his shoulder.  I suppose I had been listening to the talk of the gentlemen; for I said to him, ’When they burned my papa in effigy at Pesth, why was I not allowed to go and see?’ And he said—­I remember the sound of his voice even now—­’Little child, you were not born then.  But if you had been able to go, do you know what they would have done to you?  They would have flogged you.  Do you not know that the Austrians flog women?  When you grow up, little child, your papa will tell you the story of Madame von Maderspach.’” Then she added, “That is one of my valued recollections, that when I was a child I was carried on Kossuth’s shoulders.”

“You have no similar reminiscence of Gorgey, I suppose?” Brand said, with a smile.

He had spoken quite inadvertently, without the slightest thought in the world of wounding her feelings.  But he was surprised and shocked by the extraordinary effect which this chance remark produced on the tall and beautiful girl standing there; for an instant she paused, as if not knowing what to say.  Then she said proudly, and she turned away as she did so,