Beneath another roof in the country Graeme Jakes formed the topic of conversation that summer morning. The Misses Smedley were alone in the music-room of The Garth, where Alicia was practising a "Jazz" waltz on the piano. Josephine, swaying her body sinuously to the rhythm, smoked a cigarette while she stared out of the window.
"He's not what you'd call good looking," she said, "exactly."
"No," replied Alicia, turning her music and nodding jerkily as the tune progressed.
"All the same," said Josephine, "there's something rather——" she writhed expressively.
The fair Alicia played in silence for some moments. "Don't work up a 'pash' over him till you know more about him. For all you know, he's married already—or wrapped up in another girl. Sailors are devils."
Josephine took three "Jazz" steps across the room and threw the stump of her cigarette into the fireplace. "I like devils," said the supple virgin, "'specially ugly ones."
Her sister stopped playing, wheeled round on the music-stool, and taking a cigarette out of a box on the piano, bounced it end-on with merciless violence against her thumbnail before putting it in her mouth.
"I believe you are so dev'lish intrigued with this man because he snubbed you the other day," she drawled.
Josephine laughed. "There are some men one would rather like to be beaten by—— Al, can you think of an excuse to go over there this afternoon? What about those theatricals at Aldbury—can't we ask him to act in them? He won't, of course—that sort's too self-conscious—but it would be a decent excuse."
"Obvious," said the more experienced Alicia.