Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/98

 Rain-Girl. When he had finished Drewitt regarded him with interest.

"There is one thing I have always liked about you, Richard, you're an ass; but you don't seem to mind other people knowing it. Most of the asses I have met endeavour to camouflage their asinine qualities with lions' skins. Is it indiscreet to enquire what you propose to do?"

"I shall carry on to the extent of my finances," said Beresford with a smile.

"And then?"

"Oh! I may enter for the Ida Hopkins stakes."

"You might, but I'm afraid it's no good. Ida's out for plunder, she will sell her charms only for a title, and you have nothing more attractive than a D.S.O. and the reputation of being mentally a little unequally balanced, at least that is what the Aunt would tell her. In any case I wouldn't recommend Ida."

"Why?"

"Even if you could accommodate your ideas to her figure and its defiance of the law of feminine proportion, you would find her freckles a source of constant worry. They are like a dewildering [sic] bed-room wall-paper to an invalid. You have to try and count them, and of course you lose your place and start again. When I first met her they so fascinated me that I could do nothing but stare at her, and she blushed. Heavens! that blush. It was the most awful thing I have ever encountered. I felt that it must inevitably be followed by a violent perspiration.