midnight
It was the look of one in whose past there were no secrets -- the look of a child who is satisfied with the present and takes no thought for the future . Few women look so after they have entered their teens . Social artifice , affectation , and the insatiate vanity that modern life encourages in the feminine nature -- all these things soon do away with the pellucid clearness and steadfastness of the eye -- the beautiful , true , untamed expression , which , though so rare , is , when seen infinitely more bewitching than all the bright arrows of coquetry and sparkling invitation that flash from the glances of well-bred society dames , who have taken care to educate their eyes if not their hearts . This girl was evidently not trained properly ; had she been so , she would have dropped a curtain over those wide , bright windows of her soul ; she would have remembered that she was alone with a strange man at midnight -- at midnight , though the sun shone ; she would have simpered and feigned embarrassment , even if she could not feel it . As it happened , she did nothing of the kind , only her expression softened and became more wistful and earnest , and when she spoke again her voice was mellow with a suave gentleness , that had something in it of compassion . `` If you do not love life itself , '' she said , `` you love the beautiful things of life , do you not ? See yonder !