Leslie hummed the old musical-comedy tune. "Son of a Dean, too!"
Gwenna looked wistfully thrilled. "Wasn't he—nice enough?"
"Oh, a sweet boy. Handsome eyes. (I always want to pick them out with a fork and put them into my own head.) But too simple for me, thanks," said Leslie lightly. "He was rather cut up when I told him so."
"Didn't you tell your old lady—anything about it, Leslie?"
"Does that kind of woman ever get told the truth, Gwenna? I trow not. That's why the dear old legends live on and on about what men like and who they propose to. Also the kind old rules, drawn up by people who are past taking a hand in the game."
Again she mimicked the old lady's voice: "Nice men have one standard for the women they marry, and another (a very different standard!) for the—er—women they flirt with. (So satisfactory, don't you know, for the girl they marry. No wonder we never find those marriages being a complete washout!) But supposing that a sort of Leslie-girl came along and insisted upon Marriage being brought up to the flirtation standard—hein?"
"But your old lady, Leslie? D'you mean you just let her go on thinking that you've never had any admiration, and that you've got to agree with everything she says?"
"Rather!" said Miss Long with her enjoying laugh. "I take it in with r-r-rapt attention, looking my worst, as I always do when I'm behaving my best. Partly because one's bound to listen respectfully to one's bread-and-butter speaking. And partly because I am genuinely interested in her remarks," said Leslie Long. "It's the interest of a rather smart young soldier—if I may say so—let loose in a museum of obsolete small-arms!"
Even as she spoke her hands were busy with puff and brush, with hair-pad, pins, and pencil. Gwenna still regarded her with that full, discriminating admiration which is never grudged by one attractive girl to another—of an opposite type.
With the admiration for this was mixed a tiny dread, well known to the untried girl—"If she is what They like, they won't like me!" ... Also a wonder, "What in the world would Uncle have said to her?"