Both her aunt and uncle looked at her with slightly shocked surprise—­and she saw it at once and reddened a little.

But this incident caused the remarkable looking foreigner to crystallize in interest for her, especially when, in raising his glass of champagne, she saw that on his wrist there was a bracelet of platinum with a small watch set with very fine diamonds.  She could hardly have been more surprised if he had worn a ring in his nose, so unaccustomed was she to any type but that of the curates and young gentlemen of Exminster.

Canon and Mrs. Ebley finished their dinner in disdainful silence and sailed from the room with chilling glances, but as Stella Rawson followed them demurely she raised her soft eyes when she came to the object of her relatives’ contempt, and met his serene blue ones—­and for some reason thrilled wildly.

There was a remarkable and powerful magnetism in his glance; it was as if a breath of some other world touched her, she seemed to see into possibilities she had never dreamed about.  She resented being drawn into a far corner on the right hand of the hall, and there handed an English paper to read for half an hour before being told to go to bed.  She was perfectly conscious that she was longing for the stranger to come out of the restaurant, that she might see him again.

But it was not until she was obediently following her aunt’s black broche train to the lift up the steps again that the tall man passed them in the corridor.  He never even glanced in their direction, and went on as though the space were untenanted—­but had hardly got beyond, when he turned suddenly, and walked rapidly to the lift door, passing them again.  So that the four entered it presently, and were taken up together.

Stella Rawson was very close to the remarkable looking creature.  And again a wild nameless attraction crept over her.  She noticed his skin was faintly browned with the sun, but was otherwise as fine as a child’s—­finer than most children’s.  And now she could see that three most wonderful pearls were his shirt-studs.

He got out on the second floor, one beneath them, and said, “Pardon,” as he passed, but not as a French word, nor yet as if it were English.

During these few seconds Stella was quite aware that he had never apparently looked at her.

“I call such an appearance sacrilegious,” Mrs. Ebley said.  “A man has no right to imitate one of the blessed apostles in these modern days; it is very bad taste.”

CHAPTER II

Stella Rawson woke the next day with some sense of rebellion.  There came with the rest of her post a letter from her betrothed.  And although it was just such a letter as any nice girl engaged of her own free will to the Bishop’s junior chaplain ought to have been glad to receive, Stella found herself pouting and criticizing every sentence.