"Me? Of course I wouldn't know – I want you to tell me. Say, is she really so pretty?"
"Pretty," indeed! It was like this adorable child of nature not to understand that she was the most perfect and faultless creation on earth!
I leaned toward her. "Is she pretty?" I repeated reproachfully.
She eyed me slyly.
"Oh, of course I know how you feel," she said, "but draw me a picture of her."
"A picture!" I laughed. "All right, here goes: Eighteen, 'a daughter of the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair' – that sort of thing. Features classic – perfect oval, you know, and profile to set an artist mad with joy. Eyes? Blue as Hebe's, but big and true and tender; hair, a great, shining nugget of virgin gold. Form divine – the ideal of a poet's dream – the alluring, the elusive, the unattainable, the despair of the sculptor's chisel."
"My!" said Miss Billings, staring.
But I was not through. "Complexion? Her skin as smooth as the heart of a seashell and as delicately warm as its rosy blush when kissed by the amorous tide."
"Gee!" ejaculated my darling.
I looked at her closely. "And in one matchless cheek a dimple divine such as might have been left by the barbed arrow of Cupid when it awoke Psyche from her swoon of death. In short, she might be the dainty fairy princess of our childhood fantasies, were she less superb in figure. On the other hand, she might be the sunny-haired daughter of a Viking king, were she not too delicately featured and molded."
That was all I could remember from the description as I had read it in a novel, but I was glad I had stored it up, by Jove, for it suited her to a dot. She didn't say a word for a moment, but just sat there eying me kind of sidewise, her little upper lip lifted in an odd way. Then of a sudden she shook her head and swung her knees up over the arm of her chair.
"Well, Dicky, as a describer you sure are the slushy spreader. Say, you've got Eleanor Glyn backed off the boards."
She went on eagerly: "I don't care, though; slushy or not, your picture's just perfect for her. Why, your girl must be a ringer for the girl at Radcliffe. Only thing you left out was the freckle on the chin."
Freckle on the chin! By Jove, I left it out on purpose, for I thought she might not like it. I wondered if all girls at Radcliffe had freckles on the chin.
She lay back, regarding me inscrutably. "If she looks like that," she sighed, "you ought to love her very much, Dicky."
I couldn't say anything, for words are so deuced inadequate, you know. But I just made an effort to look it all.
"Of course," sighing, "you ought to feel that way; and, another thing, Dicky: you'll never forget where you first saw her, will you? One of the things one never forgets."
"Right in this room," I murmured; "and in that wicker chair."
"Really?" Her surprised ejaculation was delicious. By Jove, how entrancingly coquettish of her! How jolly clever!
"Go on; tell me how she was dressed – never mind any more picture business; just tell me in four or five words. Bet you can't do it!" She slipped over again to the arm of my chair.
In her eyes was a challenge and I took it up.
"In black silk pajamas," I said daringly.
Her blue eyes opened wide. For a moment I feared she would be offended at my audacity, but her birdlike carol of laughter reassured me.
"Say, you're not so slow, are you?"
And her hand came down on my back with a force that made me jump.
"Only shows," she gurgled merrily, "how little Jack knows about you. Say, you'd better never tell him about those black pajamas!"
She spoke chokingly through a storm of laughter as she rocked there against my shoulder.
"And say – the joke of it!" She banged me on the back with a clublike blow, incredible from that little hand. "The joke of it is, he thought I'd be so safe with you! Oh, mamma!"
And off she went again.
I shifted uneasily. I did not like it – her merriment over what was perfectly obvious and rational. Of course, Billings knew she would be safe. Why the deuce shouldn't he?
But the matter of the pajamas was another thing. Her receiving me in them was a contingency I could not possibly have anticipated and avoided, and yet a withdrawal because of them or even because of her presence here had been shown to be a course inexplicable to her. She was too innocent, too ingenuous, too ingénue to understand that I was invading the sanctuary of her privacy. Yet to have taken any course that would have appeared to make correction of her error come from me would have been appallingly caddish and cruel. No, the best course had seemed to be to go right on – take no notice – and then, as soon as she retired, slip away to the club. That seemed the gentlemanly thing.
Yet now her words implied a certain consciousness that her brother might frown upon her attire, might even visit me with reproach. I was troubled, and her next speech was not calculated to reassure me.
"But I'll – I'll never say a word, Dicky," she said, coming out of her laughter and panting breathlessly. "Never! And don't you, Dicky – don't you ever! Understand? Mum's the word!"
I looked up distressfully to protest, but her little head was shaking earnestly, the long, delicate hair wisps about her forehead wavering like tiny, curling wreaths of golden smoke.
"No, sir," she emphasized soberly; "if you ever let that cat out of the bag, it'll be all up with me– I mean Jack will never let me come again. You must promise me."
"But – "
"Oh, but me no 'buts' —promise!"
"Why, then – er – of course, if you wish it."
"That's right, because I want to come again – that is, if you want me. But if Brother Jack was on to you, Dicky, as I am, he would sooner have me at a hotel, that's all."
"But my dear Frances – "
"I tell you I know, Dicky; he doesn't approve of young ladies in pajamas." She chuckled. "Not even black ones."
She stood up, looking at herself and performing a graceful pirouette before the long pier glass.
"Now, if they had been crimson," she proceeded, "he might have felt different. Old Jack's great on Harvard, and so am I."
Of course. All Radcliffe girls were, I knew.
By Jove, how I wished I could show her the lovely crimson pajamas Mastermann had sent me from China! But I would have to summon Jenkins to find them, and besides, it would be of questionable taste to present them to her attention.
"Great idea, this, having pajamas in your college colors," she said. I thought so, too, as I noted admiringly the rich effect of her golden head above the black silk. But I thought the color a devilish odd one – somber, you know – for colors of a young girl's school.
"My! my!" she murmured, "wouldn't I just love to live in pajamas – just go about in 'em all the time, you know! Why can't we, I wonder?" Her face flashed me a ravishing smile; and while I was blinking over her question, she went on: "Funny how the girls even are taking to 'em – even Sis wears 'em!" She chuckled: "Hers are gray flannellette. But the girl I'm telling you about —she don't; Sis told the mater about it. It seems that before she left China, some high muck-a-muck gave her governor a swell pair of silk ones – something like these, I guess, but I don't know of what color. But, anyhow, they were too delicate and fine to be wasted on an old stiff like that, and he had sense enough to know it. So he passed 'em down the line to her – Frances, you know. Well, sir – " Here she sidled to the table and half leaned, half perched, upon its edge; and I was so distracted watching her graceful poise and gestures, that I lost what she was saying, by Jove.
It was her trill of laughter at something she had said, and the question: "Wasn't that