Roberta deigned no reply but a glance intended to be withering, which failed in its purpose because it was only counterfeit. Her eyes were as dark as a gypsy's and she had the curliest lashes Mary had ever seen. A boyish straightforwardness of manner contradicted their coquettish curliness, however. She had an air that comes only from being brought up in a houseful of teasing brothers. The man in civilian dress, whom she called Mr. Wade, watched her as if he had found a new species of girl, uncertain what she might say or do next. He was familiar with the coquettish kind and with the tom-boy kind, but this combination puzzled him.
Mary longed to follow as the four went slowly away together into the adjoining court, wholly unconscious that they had left an indelible memory behind them, or that they had revealed anything of themselves and their affairs to an unseen listener. But to Mary it was as if a new book had been opened before her and she had been allowed a glimpse of one page and the attractive picture that illustrated it. It was never necessary for her to begin at the first chapter of a book. Often, attracted by some paragraph in the middle, she would plunge into a story, only turning back for the beginning after she had pursued it eagerly through to the last word and found "how it all ended."
Now as the interesting group walked away she fervently hoped that fate would send them across her path sometime again during her sojourn in San Antonio, that she might piece together the rest of the story. All that she knew now was that the girl in white was a daughter of one of the majors at Fort Sam Houston, that the lieutenant had known Roberta ever since he was a cadet at the West Texas Military School, and that it was her brothers who had dubbed him Bogey. She had learned also that this was Mr. Wade's first visit to Texas, and that Roberta was trying to impress him with it by marvelous tales, so that he would decide to spend the winter in San Antonio instead of going on to Mexico.
But if the conversation revealed little, the picture they made as they stood against the tropical background of palms and banana trees held many suggestions. Mary felt that she knew all about lieutenants, having met two at a Kentucky house-party where she had gone to be flower-girl at a wedding when she was only fourteen. Fashions evidently had not changed in lieutenants, since these looked as if they might have been taken out of the same box that furnished the first soldiers of her acquaintance; but the girls—there had been many changes in girls since she last saw any of this kind. It was eight months since she had left school at the end of the Easter vacation, and none of the girls at Warwick Hall were doing their hair then as Roberta and the Major's daughter were doing theirs. Each had a very elaborate coiffure with a cluster of little short curls escaping to nestle against their white necks.
Her attention was especially called to this new style by Roberta's escort, whom Mary had classified in her mind as a "callow youth with a habit of making gallant little personal speeches."
When they first stepped into the court Roberta had thrown a white scarf about her, almost as light as thistledown, and glistening with crystal beads which spangled its soft meshes like dewdrops. As they turned to go it slipped from her shoulders, and Mr. Wade sprang forward to replace it. Drawing it around her shoulders he said with a melting glance at her dark hair, "What an adorable little curl!
"'Ringlet, O Ringlet, she blushed a rosy red,
When Ringlet, O Ringlet, she clipped you from her head!'"
Mary, who knew her Tennyson like her multiplication table, recalled the next lines,
"Ringlet, O Ringlet, she gave you me and said,
'Come kiss it, love, and put it by,
If this can change, why, so can I.'"