Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/22

 Miss Mather entered the drawing-room thoughtfully with the helpless feeling of one who, having made a mistake, pauses between the alternatives of tenacity and recantation. And yet as soon as she saw him a little tremor of pleasure passed over her. In spite of his drooping pose, his vacant stare, his obvious inadequacy she was sure there was something about Cyril Hammersley that made him beyond doubt the most distinguished-looking person in the room—not even excepting Rizzio.

He came over to her at once, the monocle dropping from his eye.

“Aw’fly glad. Jolly good to see you, m’dear. Handsome no end.”

He took her hand and bent over her fingers. Such a broad back he had, such a finely shaped head, such shoulders, such strong hands that were capable of so much but had achieved so little. And were these all that she could have seen in him? Reason told her that it was her mind that demanded a mate. Could it be that she was in love with a beautiful body?

There was something pathetic in the way he looked at her. She felt very sorry for him, but Betty Heathcote’s laughter was still ringing in her ears.

“Thanks, Cyril,” she said coolly. “I’ve wanted to see you—tonight—to tell you that at last I’ve volunteered with the Red Cross.”

Hammersley peered at her blankly and then with a contortion set his eyeglass.

“Red Cross—you! Oh, I say now, Doris, that’s goin’ it rather thick on a chap”

“It’s true. Father’s fitting out an ambulance corps and has promised to let me go.”

John Rizzio, tall, urbane, dark and cynical, who had