Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/34

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A NEWPORT AQUARELLE.

The eyes of the speaker, Gladys Carleton, were so soft at that moment that the man by her side wondered if the hard, bold look, which was their dominant expression, was not one acquired by habit and external influences, and this wistful, half-tender expression their natural one. He had often before asked himself this question, and had always answered it sadly in the negative. And yet the query came again to his mind on that fair summer afternoon, and was not to be dismissed so easily as it had been.

Charles Farwell, called by Gladys Carleton "Cid," was a handsome man of thirty, with certain traits which distinguished him from the hundred or two young New Yorkers who were at that time infesting Newport.

He was of the pure Saxon type sometimes found among our people, with golden hair and beard, fair skin, and eyes of that intense blue which is only seen with people of vigorous temperament. His features were almost too delicate for a man, but his six