Pearl shook her head: She could not say,—perhaps she did not really herself understand why such emotions were forbidden to her, but the true reason was that if her speaking countenance had ever turned upon a man with that thought in mind the next instant her lovely nose would have been buried in a tweed lapel or grating against a stiff collar.
"You know," Augusta went on, "that I really love Horace; and Mr. Wood took no interest in me, except as a governess for his nieces; but have you never said to yourself, 'There is the type of man whom I could have loved madly if only things had been different'?"
Again Pearl's head wagged. Then she said, "Describe my employer to me."
"Well," Augusta began solemnly, "he has a smooth brown face out of which look two bright-blue eyes like a Chinaman."
Pearl scowled.
"But Chinamen don't have blue eyes," she objected.
"No more they do. Why did I keep thinking of China then? China-blue, perhaps, or maybe the way they are set. I think there is an angle—a little up at the corners. Then his shoulders are broad, or his waist is awfully thin, because his coat falls in that loose nice way, like the English officers who came to lecture at college."
"Mercy," said Pearl, "what things you notice!"
"And he's very direct, and not at all afraid of saying what has to be said. And he doesn't lecture you about women's intuition or how he made his business success or any of those things that men always do talk about when they offer you a job. And oh, it rings in my ears the way he said as we parted, 'If you give me your word I know I can trust you to keep it,' or something like that."
And at this moment the housekeeper of the club came into the dining room, nominally to see that luncheon was being properly served, but actually, as she soon explained, because the club was so lonely in summer, and her little dog had been killed by an automobile the week before. Pearl was, of course, immensely sympathetic about this loss; and Augusta, with a flash of efficiency, suggested that Alfred could live at the club for the two months Pearl was away, and the housekeeper greeted the idea with enthusiasm.