"She hasn't anything to wear, if she would," Mrs. Norton answered for me. "You were so strict about luggage, we've only two evening dresses apiece, plain things for hotel dinners, nothing at all suitable to a dance."
"Didn't you buy her anything good enough for dances that day in Bond Street?" snapped the Dragon.
"You bought her several things almost too good for dances, at her age," retaliated the Dragon's sister, but only in a gentle coo. "They're left at the Ritz, awaiting instructions to go on to Graylees, with most of our things, and will probably be all beggars' creases before she has a chance to wear them."
"She shall have a chance to wear any or all of them to-night, if she wants to dance," said Sir Lionel.
"Of course she wants to dance," chimed in Captain Starlin. "Did you ever see a young lady who didn't want to dance, especially on a man-o'-war?"
"Do you want to?" repeated the Dragon.
Between them I was quite dashed, and murmured something non-committal about its being very nice, if it had been convenient, but——
"There is no 'but,'" said Ellaline's guardian. "That settles it. We stop the night in Southsea, where there's no doubt a good hotel; and I will send someone immediately to the Ritz for your boxes, Emily—and yours." He never calls me by name if he can help it.
Emily was inclined to object that it would be foolish to send, and we didn't want all our things anyway, till her brother gave her a look—not cross, but—well, just one of his looks that make you do things, or stop doing them, whichever he pleases; and she didn't say any more.
I can't help rather liking his masterful ways, though they're old-fashioned now that we're all supposed to think we need votes more than frocks; but this time it really would have been ungrateful of me to disapprove, as the whole fuss was being made for me. And I was dying to go to the dance!