Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/112



HOMAS ROLAND'S enthusiasm for detail had extended to the dresses worn by the chambermaids of the Pelican Inn. Someone in Chelsea had designed for him this feminine uniform, a simple creation in blue linen, short in the sleeve and open at the neck. The white cap suggested a butterfly's wings, with a knot of black velvet for the body.

The housekeeper had admired the æsthetics of the costume,—but when it came to practical politics she regretted the provocation of such clothes. For clothes do provoke, both the wearer of them and the person who has an eye for the way they are worn. And Mary Marks felt responsible. Clare and Kate were steady girls and not too good-looking, but the very flick of Nelly Barrett's neat black ankles promised her anxieties.

Even Sorrell, who was too tired to be piqued by adventure, and who had a prejudice against all baby faces, had understood the nature of Nelly's provocation. A little, sallow thing with a bobbed head of jet-black hair, and a yellowish tinge in the skin of her forearms and her throat, she moved quickly on slim legs and with a slightly undulating movement of the hips. She had a way of swinging her thin forearms as though she were balancing herself like a dancer on a rope. She caught the eye with her liveness, and the mischievous "Come and catch me" of her pert, pale face. Sorrell had seen other men looking at her as men look at certain women. And she, alive to it all, moving with little flicks of the head, would glance back, self-consciously arch, smiling, showing her white teeth.

Sorrell was very tired. A party of motorists who had booked rooms at the Pelican had wired to say that they would not arrive till midnight, and Sorrell was sitting up for them. Everyone had gone to bed, and he had taken one