“—icy!”
“—as warm as warm!”
“How was it to-day, Nancy?”
“Nancy, I believe you stayed in too long, dear,” murmured Mrs. Waters gently to me as she passed my cup down again.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” I said vaguely, trying to smile at her. She was the only one of the party to whom I felt I could turn in my utter fatigue and bewilderment. For in that party I felt myself as a sort of plain and neglected little nursery-governess. It seemed impossible that anyone should ever have admired me—that Major Montresor had ever paid me compliments—or Sydney wanted to marry me!—or that, for at least a moment, my employer had found me attractive enough to flirt with. I hadn’t looked at him, but I knew he hadn’t glanced once at me. His attention was entirely divided between Monsieur Charrier, to whom he listened with a deference new to me, and that pretty French fashion-plate in white and cream and tango-colour, who laughed whenever her host said anything at all.
Yes! She was very lovely. She made me feel dowdy and drab and gauche beyond words. Even at my best I should have felt that she outshone me; even if I did possess longer eyelashes and a flush of pink and a dimple, what were these compared with the finished chic of the way she wore hair and clothes—to her scintillating vivacity? No wonder the man beside her was so obviously lost in admiration of her!
Men adore a girl who’s “bright,” who amuses them while she saves them the trouble of thinking what to say. I believe that somewhere at the back of every man’s mind there’s a fancy portrait of himself, in a sultan’s turban, applauding condescendingly while some fair dancing-girl postures and performs for his pleasure.
Men! Even the ones who have seemed “whitest,” as Jack calls it, turn out to be cads in the end. Trying to flirt with the girl to whom you’re nominally engaged, and whom you’ll never marry, is the sort of “joke” that appeals to a masculine sense of humour. Yes, even when the possessor happens to be really attracted by quite another girl. For it didn’t take me many seconds of silent looking-on to see what game was being played between my employer and that girl.
“Odette, are these your gloves?”
He picked them up from the floor when at last we all rose.