"She's a peach," was the enthusiastic answer. "I say, Ethel, she looks like you."
Rob did not see the girlish blush which rose to Ethel's cheeks, for at the first exclamation he had lowered his paper to peer quickly through the window. He had just a glimpse of a slender stylish figure hurrying into the ticket office.
The girl in front was speaking. "I suppose I've been more interested in the débutantes this year than any other because Cousin Amy is one of them. She comes out to Anchorage for a week-end now and then to rest up, and I keep her talking the whole time about what they do. She says that Miss Sherman is the most popular of them all, with the girls as well as the men. She's had so many beautiful entertainments given in her honour, and she's been asked to help receive or pour tea or do something or other at every single function that's been given in Louisville this winter. I think it's perfectly grand to be out in society when you can be as great a success as that. They say that the American Beauties sent to her in just one day sometimes would fill a florist's shop window. There's a man from Cincinnati who sends them all the time. He's crazy about her. I should be too if I were a man. Cousin Amy has a photograph of her taken in evening dress, and she's simply regal looking. I don't wonder she makes a sensation wherever she goes."
"Here she comes now," interrupted the boy, turning with a stare of frank admiration. Rob turned too, as Lloyd came down the aisle, glancing from one side to another for an empty seat. Her face was glowing from her walk in the cold wind, and the little hat of dark blue velvet and her rich dark furs made her seem fairer than ever by contrast. Hers was a delicate, patrician style of beauty, and Rob in one critical glance saw that this winter in society had given the graceful girl the ease and poise of a charming woman. The little school-girl on the seat in front had good reason for admiring her so extravagantly. He rose as she came nearer, and stepped out in the aisle to give her the seat by the window.
"Oh, Rob! This is great!" the little school-girl heard her exclaim cordially. "I haven't seen you for an age. How does it happen you are going out on such an early train?"
Much as she was interested in "Harry's" remarks, she wished he would keep still at least until the car started. She wanted to hear how this big handsome man answered her adorable Miss Sherman. She would have been shocked could she have heard his second remark.
"There's a big flake of soot on your nose, Lloyd."
"Thanks," she said, almost looking cross-eyed in her endeavour to locate it. "There usually is in this dirty town. There! Is it off?" She scrubbed away with a bit of a handkerchief she took from her muff. "And I was flattering myself as I came along that I looked especially spick and span," she sighed. "It's refreshing to have somebody tell you the truth about yoahself, and you nevah were one to mince mattahs, Bobby."
The old name on the lips of this pretty girl so like the old Lloyd in some ways, yet so bewilderingly unlike in others, stirred him strangely.