Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/28

 walking, and stood staring in astonishment at a gate that lay a few yards back from the roadside.

In an instant Lady Drewitt, Nature, eccentricity and the weather were banished from his thoughts. Nothing that his imagination was capable of suggesting could have caused him more astonishment than what he saw perched upon this gate giving access to a wayside meadow. Had it been a griffin, a unicorn, or the Seven-Headed Beast of the Apocalypse, he would have accepted it without question as the natural phenomenon of an abnormal day.

It was not a griffin, a unicorn, or the Beast of the Apocalypse that he saw; but a girl perched jauntily upon the top bar of the roadside gate, meditatively smoking a cigarette. She seemed indifferent to the rain, indifferent to the wretchedness of her surroundings, indifferent to Beresford's presence, indifferent to everything—she was merely a spectator.

For some seconds he regarded her in astonishment. The trim, grey, tailor-made costume, knapsack, tweed hat with waterproof covering he mentally registered them all; but what struck him most was the girl's face. Nondescript but charming, was his later verdict; but now his whole attention was arrested by her eyes. Large and grey, with whites that were almost blue, and heavy dark lashes, they gazed at him gravely, wonderingly; but quite without any suggestion of curiosity.

For nearly a minute he stood staring at her in astonishment. Then suddenly realising the