And a volume of hearty admiration was in the monosyllable.
Dinah Thurston, in her girlhood, had learnt dressmaking as a trade. Of dress as a difficult social art Dinah Arbuthnot knew not the initial letters. Here her husband was an unfailing monitor. Gaston had an artist’s knowledge of colour and effect. He had the sense of fitness belonging to a man of the world. Dinah’s apparel might not accurately follow the fashion books. It bore the seal of distinction at all times.
Thus the ‘safe’ black dress was absolutely perfect of its kind; plain of make, as was meet for such a bust, such shoulders as Dinah’s, but draped by a Parisian hand that knew its cunning. A ruffle of Mechlin lace enhanced the sweet whiteness of the wearer’s throat. A velvet-lined hat threw up the outline of the head, the waves of short-cut English-coloured hair in rich relief.
‘You are lovelier than any picture!’ cried Marjorie, looking at Dinah Arbuthnot with as generous a pleasure, surely, as ever woman felt in the beauty of another.
‘Advise me about my gloves.’ Dinah blushed and drew back at the girl’s frank praise. ‘Here are cream-coloured ones, you see, the same shade as my ruffle, and here is a box of long black silk gloves. My husband had them sent from Paris with the gown. Of course, the cream-coloured are the dressiest.’ The tone of Dinah’s voice betrayed her own leaning. ‘Mr. Arbuthnot warns me generally against light gloves. My hands, he says, are half a size too large. Still for a flower-show——’
‘You must wear the black gloves, Mrs. Arbuthnot. No shadow of doubt about it! As you see, I don’t go in for dandy dress myself,’ said Marjorie, ‘but one can’t help hearing the whispers of the milliners. These long silk gloves are at present the one righteous thing to wear in London and in Paris.’
‘And no ribbons, no ornament? I have a gold necklace that looks nice on black, and——’
‘You want no ornament at all. You must take our little world by storm just as you stand at this moment. Miller has some crimson roses in his garden. We will cut one as we pass. The black of your hat would be better for a single spot of colour.’
By the time Marjorie’s fiery Welsh ponies had rushed up to the Arsenal four o’clock was striking. The rose-show festivities were, for the weak and frivolous, at their culminating point. It was the hour when staid flower-lovers—sensible souls who came to see the real, not the human roses—were leaving, Cassandra Tighe among them.
‘I am starting off to Tintajeux,’ she told Marjorie, as they passed each other at the entrance. ‘The Seigneur’s “Duc de Rohan” has taken a prize, and I must be first to carry the news to the Manoir.’ Then, with a kindly glance at Dinah, ‘You have done the right thing, have paid your visit,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t see the necessity of mixing yourself up with it all in public. Linda Thorne presides at the refreshment tent, and that wretched man is simply infatuated in his attentions. But the error is generous. Being a Bartrand, you can, I suppose, do nothing by halves.’