“Now, darling. You mustn’t be cross—I had something to do. My! How beautiful you are!” He attempted to caress her.
“Please, Hugh,” she held him off, “I wish you wouldn’t paw all over me! Nanette simply couldn’t arrange my hair to suit me to-night! I had to do it myself and it was exasperatingly stubborn!”
“It looks wonderful, darling.”
“No, it doesn’t!” She walked to the mantel and stared into the mirror. “It looks a fright, but I can’t help it, and I did want to look particularly nice to-night.”
“Why to-night?” Hugh asked curiously. “To me you always look particularly nice,” he added gallantly.
“There are some people here from New York,” Geraldine answered his question without paying the slightest heed to his compliment—“people who had the impertinence deliberately to cut me—before we were married. I am looking forward to the pleasure of retaliating. I think the women will feel it a great deal more, if I am looking my best.”
“What a disgusting parvenu!” was Elinor’s thought as she still stared into the lighted streets.
“What a child you are,” Hugh laughed indulgently. “Well, I have something here,” and he pulled a long box from his pocket, “that may help you a little. This is what delayed me.”
He held the long string of perfectly matched, lustrous pearls before her.
“Oh, you darling!” she exclaimed, as she threw her arms about him, hair forgotten. “You are too good to me! Here, put them on me!”