Page:Edgar Wallace - The Man who Knew.djvu/249

 change which he could not for the moment define, for this phenomenon of development had been denied to his experience.

"Why, May," he said, "you are quite old."

She laughed, and again he noticed the change. The laugh was richer, sweeter, purer than the bubbling treble he had known.

"You are not getting complimentary, are you?" she asked.

She was exquisitely dressed, and had that poise which few Englishwomen achieve. She had the art of wearing clothes, and from the flimsy crest of her toque to the tips of her little feet she was all that the most exacting critic could desire. There are well-dressed women who are no more than mannequins. There are fine ladies who cannot be mistaken for anything but fine ladies, whose dresses are a horror and an abomination and whose expressed tastes are execrable.

May Nuttall was a fine lady, finely appareled.

"When you have finished admiring me,