'I am Mr. Smith,' said the stranger in a musical voice.
'I am Miss Swancourt,' said Elfride.
Her constraint was over. The great contrast between the reality
she beheld before her, and the dark, taciturn, sharp, elderly man
of business who had lurked in her imagination--a man with clothes
smelling of city smoke, skin sallow from want of sun, and talk
flavoured with epigram--was such a relief to her that Elfride
smiled, almost laughed, in the new-comer's face.
Stephen Smith, who has hitherto been hidden from us by the
darkness, was at this time of his life but a youth in appearance,
and barely a man in years. Judging from his look, London was the
last place in the world that one would have imagined to be the
scene of his activities: such a face surely could not be nourished
amid smoke and mud and fog and dust; such an open countenance
could never even have seen anything of 'the weariness, the fever,
and the fret' of Babylon the Second.
His complexion was as fine as Elfride's own; the pink of his
cheeks as delicate. His mouth as perfect as Cupid's bow in form,
and as cherry-red in colour as hers. Bright curly hair; bright
sparkling blue-gray eyes; a boy's blush and manner; neither
whisker nor moustache, unless a little light-brown fur on his
upper lip deserved the latter title: this composed the London
professional man, the prospect of whose advent had so troubled
Elfride.
Elfride hastened to say she was sorry to tell him that Mr.
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