Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Don-a-dreams.djvu/129

 "Why, how do you do? Aren't you going to the Conversat?" And he entered as if he had been Romeo just arrived by way of his rope ladder.

She had been sitting for her photograph on the previous day, and she had put on again the pretty dress which she had worn for the picture. It was cut low and square in the neck, to show a throat that was as round as a bird's, girlishly white and soft, and to him so tenderly beautiful that it took him with a blushing catch of the breath, which she saw and smiled at as she had smiled at her reflection in the mirror. She patted the butterfly bow which she had arranged as if it had lighted artlessly on top of her young coiffure, thanking him for his admiration with triumphant eyes. "This is so unexpected!" she said.

"Won't she tell?" he whispered. She understood that he referred to the maid. She set the bow dancing with a spirited shake of her head. "I'll tell on her if she does." When they had passed out of the hall, through the curtains, she explained in a choked undertone: "There's someone in the kitchen with her. She's awfully funny. They won't let her have callers. She says they're a 'lot of old maids'!"

He wiped the melted snow from his eyelashes and his eyebrows, laughing in his handkerchief.

"I didn't dare light all the lights," she went on, under her voice, "for fear the neighbours would see it and say something. Isn't it a joke!" And then with the same gaiety but loudly, fluttering across the