Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/234

 And the rash young lady whirled her heavy skirts about her and danced fantastically upon the path. In comparison to her wraith-like grace the man seemed to be shambling like a bear.

So the two moved like strange figures from a fairy story, through the fog and over the moor, following the intricacies of the footpath back to the house called 'Paradise.' Sears Ripley did not, and perhaps never would, 'declare himself.'

It was when she was in London that she felt most bitterly the insistence of Anthony Jones. It would be so easy to stop in at Clapyard & Dunster's and so unembarrassing to ask her question of a blind man who never had seen her face. But she had strength to resist until, opening her American mail, her eye caught the final paragraph of Mr. Fox's weekly letter.

'And, by the way, do drop in sometime and ask Mr. Clapyard what arrangements we could make with his printers for the frontispiece of "Sands of Araby." That type of engraving is done so much better over there than here, I have decided to import if I can get reasonable terms....'

The seven elderly spinsters with whom she ate her breakfast, and who instinctively disapproved of this exotic presence among them, sipped their tea and raised their eyebrows. Such absorption could only mean a love letter, and the creature was already seeing far too much of the tall, distinguished gentleman with the beard.