We chaps who write have magic carpets.
A marble balcony, overlooking the sea, which shimmered under the light of the summer moon. Lord Henry Monckton and Kitty leaned over the baluster and silently watched the rush of the rollers landward and the slink of them back to the sea.
For three days Kitty had wondered whether she liked or disliked Lord Monckton. The fact that he was the man who had bumped into Thomas that night at the theater may have had something to do with her doddering. He might at least have helped Thomas in recovering his hat. Dark, full-bearded, slender, with hands like a woman's, quiet of manner yet affable, he was the most picturesque person at the cottage. But there was always something smoldering in those sleepy eyes of his that suggested to Kitty a mockery. It was not that recognizable mockery of all those visiting Englishmen who held themselves complacently superior to their generous American hosts. It was as though he were silently laughing at all he saw, at all which happened about him, as if he stood in the midst of some huge joke which he alone was capable of understanding: so Kitty weighed him.
He did not seem to care particularly for women; he never hovered about them, offering little favors and courtesies; rather, he let them come to him. Nor did he care for dancing. But he was always ready to make up a table at bridge; and a shrewd capable player he was, too.
The music in the ballroom stopped.
“Will you be so good, Miss Killigrew, as to tell me why you Americans call a palace like this—a cottage?” Lord Monckton's voice was pleasing, with only a slight accent.
“I'm sure I do not know. If it were mine, I'd call it a villa.”
“I have no preference for any people. I prefer individuals. I had much rather talk to an enlightened Chinaman than to an unenlightened white man.”
“I am afraid you are what they call blase.”
“Perhaps I am not quite at ease yet. I was buffeted about a deal in the old days.”
Lord Monckton dropped back into the wicker chair, in the deep shadow. Kitty did not move. She wondered what Thomas was doing. (Thomas was rubbing ointment on his raw knuckles.)
“I am very fond of the sea,” remarked Lord Monckton. “I have seen some odd parts of it. Every man has his Odyssey, his Aeneid.”
Aeneid. It seemed to Kitty that her body had turned that instant into marble as cold as that under her palms.
The coal of the man's cigar glowed intermittently. She could see nothing else.
