Page:Neith Boyce--The bond.djvu/92

90 "There—love letters again! I'm going to open it!"

"All right. But I thought we agreed not to read each other's letters? How pretty you are to-day, Teresa! I must paint you in a low dress—something blue—that white skin of yours, with the ivory undertone"

Teresa had opened the grey envelope, and looked at the signature,

"Isabel Perry! Now, why should she write to you, Basil? You didn't tell me"

"Don't know. I've never had a letter from her before. About the picture, I daresay." "Picture! Eight pages about the picture! Shall I read it?"

"Oh, if you want to. But perhaps you might let me read it first, as it's addressed to me."

Basil was "perfectly good-humoured and unembarrassed. He looked amused.

"No, I shall read it to you," said Teresa, sitting down half-dressed and glancing rapidly over the first pages. "The interesting parts, that is. There's a lot about the motor and the roads and the people—she pretends to be bored—'I sit with a veil over my face, and he sits beside me with goggles on, and he could not see me even if I had no veil and he no goggles'—how silly! She's a femme incomprise, is she? 'Can't tell you how many thousands of miles distant I feel from these people, stupefied by so