ht-blue-eyed, crop-haired, and possessing
the shadow of a coming event in the shape (I can't call it more) of a
moustache. I had also an impression of a Panama hat, which came off in
compliment to me, a gray flannel suit, the latest kind of collar (you
know "Sissy Williams says, 'the feeling is for low ones this year'!")
and mustard-coloured boots. All that sounds hideous, I know, yet it
wasn't. At first sight it was rather attractive, but it lost its
attractiveness in a flash when it mistook the nature of my smile.

You wouldn't believe that a nice, clean little British face could change
so much for the worse in about the eighth part of a second! It couldn't
have taken longer, or I shouldn't have seen, because it happened between
my smile and my walking on. But I did see. A disagreeable kind of
lighting up in the eyes, which instantly made them look full
of--consciousness of sex, is the only way I can express it. And instead
of being inoffensive, boyish, blue beads, they were suddenly transformed
into the sharp, whitey-gray sort that the Neapolitans "make horns" at.

Well, all that was nothing to fuss about, for even _I_ know that
misguided youths from Surbiton or Pawtucket, who are quite harmless at
home, think they owe it to themselves to be gay dogs when they run over
to Paris, otherwise they'll not get their money's worth. If it hadn't
been for what came afterward I wouldn't be wasting paper and ink on a
silly young bounder. As it is, I'll just tell you what happened and see
if you think I was to blame, or whether there's likely to be any bother.

At that change my look slid off the self-conceited face, like rain off a
particularly slippery duck's back. He ought to have known then, if he
hadn't before, that I considered him a mere It, but I can just imagine
his saying to himself: "This is Paris, and I've paid five pounds for a
return ticket. Must have something to tell the chaps. What's a girl
doing out alone?"

He came after me and said I'd dropped something. So I had. It was a
rose. I was going to disclaim it, with all the haughty grace of a
broomstick, when suddenly I remembered that it was my _carte
d'identite_, so to speak. The Dragon had prescribed it in his last
letter to Madame de Maluet about meeting Ellaline. As there might be
difficulty in recognition if she came to the station with a chaperon as
strange to him as herself, it would be well, he suggested, that each
pinned a red rose on her dress. Then