Page:Tongues of Flame (1924).pdf/54



UT why—why did they invite me?" Harrington kept asking himself as he went up the hill. "Probably just tact. Saw I was all fussed up and wanted to make me feel right about it. Decent, I'll say," and Henry experienced a very grateful feeling. "And lucky for me!" he gulped.

But the curiosity in his mind which swallowed all others had to do with Billie, and he was glad he had had the courage to get into evening dress himself when she burst on his vision, wearing some shimmering white stuff with an overtone of pink in its coloring; thus imparting an iridescence to the garment which fell away from her gleaming shoulders in classic but form-revealing folds to a train that curved about her dainty silver-shod feet.

Upon the shoes were buckles of green jade, and in the young lady's hand was a bizarre fan of feathers, long, narrow and oddly curled, dyed as green as the jade, while an are of green stones flashed where they nestled in the loose masses of hair. The green of the stones wrought a faint harmony with the green of the fan; at the same time it brought out that bronze tinge in her silky coils, and thus seemed to lengthen this fascinating effect of iridescence.

Even the light-filled eyes were iridescent; and when they welcomed Henry with an unfeigned cordiality they kindled a glow in his soul that was iridescent also.