Dinner was announced, and we all got up. Percival, with a new alacrity, approached Mollie,—he almost always had Mollie,—the others paired off as usual, and Vera rose to Captain Thornton’s arm. It was then that she said, smiling thoughtfully upon Mollie:
“Aren’t you doing your hair in a new way, dear?”
I saw from Mollie’s answering smile that she was still ingenuous enough to hope that she might win Vera’s approval with that of the others, the hope, too, that while Clive might think of herself as a first-rate angel, he should never see Vera as a cat.
“It is new,” she said. “I’ve just learned how to; Judith showed me. Do you like it?”
Leaning on Captain Thornton’s arm, Vera, with gently lifted brows, rather sadly shook her head.
“I suppose I don’t care about fashions. It’s very fashionable, isn’t it? But I loved so that great, girlish knot. People’s way of doing their hair is part of their personality to me. Judith cares so much about fashion, I know. Do you care about fashion, Captain Thornton? Do you like this fashionable way? You know, I can’t help always thinking that it makes women’s heads look like cheeses; in napkins, you know—Stiltons.”
It was the first scratch. Mollie, though with a little startled glance, took it with all mildness, making no comment as Percival led her away, Percival remarking that it was, he thought, a ripping way of doing her hair; and I, as I went out manless, heard Captain Thornton, behind me, saying, in answer to Vera’s murmurs:
“Yes; I see; I see what you mean. But, do you know, all the same I think it’s most awfully becoming to Mollie. It brings out the shape of her face so.”
“What a dear little face it is!” said Vera, rapidly leaving the cheese.
It all worked like a stealing spell. There was nothing marked or sudden in it. No one, I think, except Vera, was aware that his or her attitude to little Mrs. Thornton had changed. She had become visible, that was all, and they became aware that she was not only worth looking at, but worth talking to. At dinner that night old Sir Francis fixed his eye-glass to observe her more than once and after dinner he joined her in the drawing-room and talked with her till bedtime. It turned out then that he had known her father and actually possessed one of his pictures; had been a great admirer. Next morning he was walking with her on the terrace before breakfast. Mollie in a blue lawn, as sprightly as it was demure, her casque of golden hair shining in the sunlight. Lady Dighton asked her that afternoon to come motoring with her and the Tommies, and in the evening I heard Mrs. Travers-Cray, while she and Mollie wound wool together, telling her about her two boys at the front. The only person who didn’t see more of Mollie was Captain Thornton; but that, I felt sure, was because Vera was determined that he shouldn’t.