After all, the sting to her vanity had been too slight to leave an impression.  There must be another cause for the shadow that had fallen over her spirits.  Even a reigning beauty of thirty years could scarcely expect to be invincible; and she had known too much homage in the past to resent what was obviously a lack of discrimination.  Her disappointment went deeper than this, for it had its source in the stories she had heard of Vetch that sounded original and dramatic.  She had imagined a personality that was striking, spectacular, or at least interesting; and the actual Gideon Vetch had seemed to her merely unimpressive and ordinary.  Beside John Benham (as the thought of Benham returned to her, her spirit rose on wings out of the shadow), beside John Benham, in the drawing-room after dinner, Vetch had appeared at a disadvantage that was almost ridiculous; and, as Stephen Culpeper had hastened to point out, this was merely a striking illustration of the damning contrast between the Governor’s chequered political career and Benham’s stainless record of service.

A smile curved her lips as she gazed at the quivering sunbeams.  Was that deep instinct for perfection, the romantic vision of things as they ought to be, awaking again?  Did the starry flower bloom not in the dream, but in reality?  The passion to create beauty, to bring happiness, which had been extinguished for years, burned afresh in her heart.  Yes, as long as there was beauty, as long as there was nobility of spirit, she could fight on as one who believed in the future.

A shadow darkened the window, and a moment afterward there was a fall of the old silver knocker on her door.  She thought at first—­the shadow had seemed so young—­that it was Stephen; but when she opened the door, she saw, with a lovely flush, that it was John Benham.

“You expected me?” he asked, raising her hand to his lips.

“Yes, I knew that you would come,” she answered, and the flush died away slowly as she turned back to the fire.  In the moment of recognition all the despondency had vanished so utterly that it had not left even a memory.  He had brought not only peace, but youth and happiness back to her eyes.

He came in as impressively as he presented himself to an audience; and with the glow of pleasure still in her heart, she found her keen and observant mind watching him almost as if he were a stranger.  This had been her misfortune always, the ardent heart joined to the critical judgment, the spectator chained eternally to the protagonist.  She received a swift impression that he had prepared his words and even his gestures, the kiss on her fingers.  Yet, in spite of this suggestion of the actor, or because of it, he possessed, she felt, great distinction.  The straight backward sweep of his hair; the sharp clearness of his profile; the steady serenity of his gray eyes; the ease and suppleness and indolent strength of his tall thin figure—­all these physical