"I think, Tony, you'd be even less successful than Tiger, and more
sorry for yourself than he is after your very first attempt," she
responded.
"So perhaps I'd better not make a first attempt, even in the hope of
getting a pat on the neck afterwards," laughed Tony.
There was pride and admiration in his pale blue eyes as he looked up at
the girl who had promised to marry him. He was the owner of many
priceless art treasures, none of which, however, was half as beautiful
in his eyes as Myra Rostrevor.
Her beauty was unique, and even in an assembly of lovely women she
would have attracted attention. Yet her features were not classically
perfect, her small nose had the faintest suspicion of tip-tilt, and
there was nothing stately or majestic about her. No one had ever
compared her to a Greek goddess, but even artists raved about her
beauty and charm, and competed for the privilege of painting her
portrait.
She was slim but shapely. Her hair was the auburn that Titian loved to
paint, with a golden gleam in it, as if a sunbeam had become entangled
and failed to escape. Her complexion, innocent of powder or cosmetics,
was clear and delicate as a rose-leaf but with the faintest tinge of
healthy tan. Her eyes, blue as summer seas, were fringed with long,
dark lashes, and she had an aggravatingly seductive dimple in each
cheek, and another in the centre of her daintily-rounded chin.
A lovely, fascinating and bewitching girl, whom the fates and the
fairies had endowed with that undefinable gift we call "charm." And
Myra had charmed the hearts out of many men, while remaining herself
heart-whole. She was still heart-whole although she was engaged to be
married to Tony Standish, and she had left her fiancé no illusions on
that point.
"Yes, I'll marry you, Tony, but I don't love you," she had told him,
when he proposed a second time after having been rejected on the first
occasion. "I'm going to marry you because Aunt Clarissa insists I must
marry a rich man, and you happen to be the least objectionable rich man
who wants me. I like you, Tony, and think you are rather a dear, but I
want you to understand I'm not in love, and you will be buying me. I'm
selling myself simply because I love all the good things of life,
because you can pay for them, and because Aunt Clarissa keeps badgering
me to marry and I am dependent on her for practically everything."