“That isn’t the point only—silly! If she liked you ever so much and you were free, do you suppose I would take her side—help her?”
“I hope not,” said Nigel insinuatingly, suddenly changing his seat to one close to Bertha.
She looked calmly away, as if bored.
He saw it was the wrong tone and stood up, with his back to the mantelpiece, looking at her.
“I like your frock, Bertha.”
She looked down at it.
“You have an extraordinary air of not knowing what you have got on. I never saw a woman look so unconscious of her dress. There’s a good deal of the art that conceals art about it, I fancy. Your clothes are attractive—in an impressionist way!”
“The only thing I think of about my dresses, is that they should make people admire me—not my dressmaker,” said Bertha candidly. “I don’t care for much variety, and I leave real smartness to Madeline and the other tall, slim girls. My figure is so wrong! How dare I be short and tiny, and yet not thin, nowadays?”
“You’re exquisite—at least in my opinion. I’ve never been an admirer of the lamp-post as the type of a woman’s figure.”