Page:Anthony Hope - The Kings Mirror.djvu/279

 "Oh, a few years over thirty. But he's made the most of his time in the world. The most, not the best, I mean, you know."

Her thoughts had been on Wetter and Wetter's words. Since she had smiled I concluded that my guess was not far off. Elsa turned to me with a blush and the coquettish air that now and then sat so prettily on her innocence.

"I should think he might have made love rather well," she said.

"I shouldn't wonder in the least," said I. "But he might be a little tempestuous."

"Yes," Elsa acquiesced. "And that wouldn't be nice, would it?"

"Not at all nice," said I, and laughed. Elsa joined in my laugh, but doubtfully and reluctantly, as though she had but a dim glimmer of the reason for it. Then she turned to me with a sudden radiant smile.

"Fancy!" said she. "Mother says I must have forty frocks."

"My dear," said I, "have four hundred."

"But isn't it a lot?"

"I suppose it is," I remarked. "But have anything you ought to have. You like the frocks, Elsa? "

She gave that little emphatic double nod of hers.

We talked no more of the frocks then, but during the few days which followed Elsa's perusal of Wetter's speech there was infinite talk of frocks and all the rest of the furnishings and appurtenances of Elsa's new rank. The impulse which moved women so different as my mother, the Duchess, and Victoria, to a common course of conduct was doubtless based on an universal woman's instinct. All the three seemed to set themselves to dazzle the girl with the