But while looking at him and Lu, on that day, I didn’t perceive half of this, only felt annoyed at their behavior, and let them feel that I was noticing them.  There’s nothing worse than that; it is a very upas-breath, it puts on the brakes, and of course a chill and a restraint overcame them till Mr. Dudley was announced.

“Dear! dear!” I exclaimed, getting upon my feet.  “What ever shall we do, Lu?  I’m not dressed for him.”  And while I stood, Mr. Dudley came in.

Mr. Dudley didn’t seem to mind whether I was dressed in cobweb or sheet-iron; for he directed his looks and conversation so much to Lu, that Rose came and sat on a stool before me and began to talk.

“Miss Willoughby”—­

“Yone, please.”

“But you are not Yone.”

“Well, just as you choose.  You were going to say?”

“Merely to ask how you liked the Islands.”

“Oh, well enough.”

“No more?” he said.  “They wouldn’t have broken your spell so, if that had been all.  Do you know I actually believe in enchantments now?”

I was indignant, but amused in spite of myself.

“Well,” he continued, “why don’t you say it?  How impertinent am I?  You won’t?  Why don’t you laugh, then?”

“Dear me!” I replied.  “You are so much on the ‘subtle-souled-psychologist’ line, that there’s no need of my speaking at all.”

“I can carry on all the dialogue?  Then let me say how you liked the Islands.”

“I shall do no such thing.  I liked the West Indies because there is life there; because the air is a firmament of balm, and you grow in it like a flower in the sun; because the fierce heat and panting winds wake and kindle all latent color, and fertilize every germ of delight that might sleep here forever.  That’s why I liked them; and you knew it just as well before as now.”

“Yes; but I wanted to see if you knew it.  So you think there is life there in that dead Atlantis.”

“Life of the elements, rain, hail, fire, and snow.”

“Snow thrice bolted by the northern blast, I fancy, by which time it becomes rather misty.  Exaggerated snow.”

“Everything there is an exaggeration.  Coming here from England is like stepping out of a fog into an almost exhausted receiver; but you’ve no idea what light is, till you’ve been in those inland hills.  You think a blue sky the perfection of bliss?  When you see a white sky, a dome of colorless crystal, with purple swells of mountain heaving round you, and a wilderness of golden greens royally languid below, while stretches of a scarlet blaze, enough to ruin a weak constitution, flaunt from the rank vines that lace every thicket, and the whole world, and you with it, seems breaking into blossom,—­why, then you know what light is and can do.  The very wind there by day is bright, now faint, now stinging, and makes a low, wiry music through the loose sprays, as if they were tense harp-strings.  Nothing startles; all is like a grand composition utterly wrought out.  What a blessing it is that the blacks have been imported there,—­their swarthiness is in such consonance!”