Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/170

162 these little puffs are just fascinating—it is rather long for them—but it will look ravishing. Really, my eyes, and eyebrows, and eyelashes are my best features, don’t you think?”

Marie, the delightful, charming little creature, twittered on. I went downstairs.

Leslie started when I entered the room, but seeing only me, he leaned forward again, resting his arms on his knees, looking in the fire.

“What the Dickens is she doing?” he asked.

“Dressing.”

“Then we may keep on waiting. Isn’t it a deuced nuisance, these people coming?”

“Well, we generally have a good time.”

“Oh—it’s all very well—we’re not in the same boat, you and me.”

“Fact,” said I laughing.

“By Jove, Cyril, you don’t know what it is to be in love. I never thought—I couldn’t ha’ believed I should be like it. All the time when it isn’t at the top of your blood, it’s at the bottom:—‘the Girl, the Girl.’&thinsp;”

He stared into the fire.

“It seems pressing you, pressing you on. Never leaves you alone a moment.”

Again he lapsed into reflection.

“Then, all at once, you remember how she kissed you, and all your blood jumps afire.”

He mused again for awhile—or rather, he seemed fiercely to con over his sensations.

“You know,” he said, “I don’t think she feels for me as I do for her.”

“Would you want her to?” said I.