“What nonsense!” Alice exclaimed. “She's never even mentioned him to me.”
The young man glanced at her dubiously and passed a finger over the tiny prong that dashingly composed the whole substance of his moustache.
“Well, you see, Mildred IS pretty reserved,” he remarked. “This Russell is some kind of cousin of the Palmer family, I understand.”
“He is?”
“Yes—second or third or something, the girls say. You see, my sister Ella hasn't got much to do at home, and don't read anything, or sew, or play solitaire, you see; and she hears about pretty much everything that goes on, you see. Well, Ella says a lot of the girls have been talking about Mildred and this Arthur Russell for quite a while back, you see. They were all wondering what he was going to look like, you see; because he only got here yesterday; and that proves she must have been talking to some of 'em, or else how——”
Alice laughed airily, but the pretty sound ended abruptly with an audible intake of breath. “Of course, while Mildred IS my most intimate friend,” she said, “I don't mean she tells me everything—and naturally she has other friends besides. What else did your sister say she told them about this Mr. Russell?”
“Well, it seems he's VERY well off; at least Henrietta Lamb told Ella he was. Ella says——”
Alice interrupted again, with an increased irritability. “Oh, never mind what Ella says! Let's find something better to talk about than Mr. Russell!”
“Well, I'M willing,” Mr. Dowling assented, ruefully. “What you want to talk about?”
But this liberal offer found her unresponsive; she sat leaning back, silent, her arms along the arms of her chair, and her eyes, moist and bright, fixed upon a wide doorway where the dancers fluctuated. She was disquieted by more than Mildred's reserve, though reserve so marked had certainly the significance of a warning that Alice's definition, “my most intimate friend,” lacked sanction. Indirect notice to this effect could not well have been more emphatic, but the sting of it was left for a later moment. Something else preoccupied Alice: she had just been surprised by an odd experience. At first sight of this Mr. Arthur Russell, she had said to herself instantly, in words as definite as if she spoke them aloud, though they seemed more like words spoken to her by some unknown person within her: “There! That's exactly the kind of looking man I'd like to marry!”