on a camp-chair. It was a
small cabin, boiling over with dresses, though the "Young Moon" had
not yet been added to their number. Peter had never found his sister
in a propitious mood for the gift, and had been keeping the "Moon,"
figuratively, up his sleeve till the right moment came. Now, perhaps
it had come.
Ena had been lying down after luncheon. She had given herself this
little rest because she knew that Raygan was going to play poker in
the smoking-room. She had learned bridge--though cards bored her--just
as she had learned tennis and golf and all sorts of eccentric dances,
in order to be popular, to be in the swim, to do just what the
fashionable people were doing--the people at the top, where she wanted
to arrive.
But she could not play poker! And if she could, it would have been
impossible to go with Lord Raygan into the smoking-room. Luckily no
other girl would be there, so Ena resigned herself to the loss of
valuable time on her last day.
"Why, yes," Peter answered. "I believe you _are_ sure to! It won't be
a hard favour to do, Sis. It's only to let me introduce a girl, a very
nice girl, and then to be kind and help her if she needs it."
Ena laughed. "Is that all? I guess--I mean, I fancy--I can promise
that. Girls don't need much help nowadays Who is she? Have I seen
her?"
"No. You haven't seen her."
"Is she pretty?" Peter had expected that question. Ena, and all the
other girls he knew, invariably asked it. But he did not quite know
what to answer.
"She's awfully attractive," he said. "The sort you'd turn and look
after in a crowd. She hasn't got what you call features, but--you
can't take your eyes off her somehow. She looks--she looks--well, a
tiny bit like a--a--perfectly gloriously fascinating--golliwog."
"A golliwog!"
"Great big, wide-apart eyes, I mean; dark, floating ones, with immense
eyelashes that curl up and stick out when you see her profile. She's
got a short, round face--no, kind of heart-shaped, I guess, and a
little, delicate, turned-up nose, like the Duchess of Marlborough's;
and a lovely mouth--yes, her mouth _is_ lovely, no mistake! She's
nearly always laughing, even when she isn't happy. She's got a long
neck, like a flower stem, and long legs---"
"Good gracious, what a description! For heaven's sake, who is the
girl?"
"Oh, I know it must sound queer; but she's the most fascinating thing
you ever saw, and any man would say so. She's a Miss Child---"
"Ther
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