Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/189

 in other words, I felt extremely well and happy. Then I suddenly caught sight of a girl at the table by the window, and it made me" he paused.

"Was it love at first sight?" she asked quietly.

"And then," he continued, "I found this fair world was not so fair. Nature had suddenly administered a cold douche in the shape of a pair of calves that terminated suddenly in shapeless feet."

"Whatever do you mean?" she cried, laughing.

"Merely that like Godfrey Elton, I'm very sensitive about ankles."

"But what have this girl's ankles to do with you?" She crinkled up her brows in a way she had when puzzled.

"They spoiled my breakfast," he complained, "and I'm afraid they're going to spoil the whole day for me."

"You are funny," she smiled. "I don't understand you in the least. I always thought that Englishmen were unapproachable in the morning; but you are more ridiculous in the morning than during the rest of the day."

"Imagine the state of mind of a woman conscious that Nature has left her like an unfinished symphony," he continued. "She must tremble every time she opens a fashion paper, lest some readjustment of the surface of exposure shall betray her."

"But we are not all Greeks," she suggested.

"A woman doesn't require to be a Greek to be conscious of Nature's inexplicable oversights in modelling," he retorted.