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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Ill On the way to church, the Monteiths sifted out their new acquaintance. ' Well, what do you make of him, Frida ?' Philip asked, leaning back in his place, with a luxurious air, as soon as the carriage had turned the corner. ' Lunatic or sharper ?' Frida gave an impatient gesture with her neatly gloved hand. ' For my part,' she answered without a second's hesitation, ' I make him neither : I find him simply charming.' ' That's because he praised your dress,' Philip replied, looking wise. ' Did ever you know anything so cool in your life ? Was it ignorance, now, or insolence ?' ' It was perfect simplicity and naturalness,' Frida answered with confidence. ' He looked at the dress, and admired it, and being trans- patently naif, he didn't see why he shouldn't say so. It wasn't at all rude, I thought—and it gave me pleasure." ' He certainly has in some ways charming manners,' Philip went on more slowly. ' He manages to impress one. If he's a madman, which I rather more than half suspect, it's at least a gentlemanly form of madness.' ' His manners are more than merely charming,' Frida answered, quite enthusiastic, for she had taken a great fancy at first sight to the mysterious stranger. ' They 've such absolute freedom. That's what strikes me most in them. They 're like the best English aristocratic manners, without the insolence ; or the freest American manners, without the roughness. He's extremely distinguished. And, oh, isn't he handsome!' ' He is good-looking,' Philip assented grudgingly. Philip owned a looking-glass, and was therefore accustomed to a very high standard of manly beauty. As for Robert Monteith, he smiled the grim smile of the wholly unfascinated. Hewas a dour, business man of Scotch descent, who had made his money in palm-oil in the...
