“Nonsense,” said Patty, “but you two don’t know how lovely she is when she smiles.”
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield were seated with their backs to the lady in question, and could not see her without slightly turning their heads, while Patty, opposite them at the round table, faced her directly.
“You’re fortunate in your position,” observed her father, “for were you seated here and we there, of course she would have beamed upon us.”
“She isn’t beaming,” cried Patty, almost indignantly; “I won’t have that angelic smile called a beam. Now, you’re not to tease. She’s a sweet, dear lady, with some awful tragedy gnawing at her heart.”
“Patty, you’re growing up romantic! Stop it at once. I’ll buy the lady for you, if you want her, but I won’t have you indulging in rubbishy romance like that, with nothing to base it on.”
Patty looked at her father comically.
“I don’t believe you’d better buy her, Daddy, dear,” she said. “You know you often say that, with Nan and me on your hands, you have all you can manage. So I’m sure you couldn’t add those two to your collection; for I feel certain wherever the White Lady goes the Black Lady goes too.”
The subject was lost sight of then, by the greetings of some friends who were passing by the Fairfields on their way out of the Restaurant.
“Why, Mrs. Leigh,” exclaimed Nan, “how do you do? Won’t you and Mr. Leigh sit down and have coffee with us? Or, better yet, suppose we all go up to our drawing-room and have coffee there.”
After Patty had spoken to the newcomers and was sitting silent while her elders were talking, she looked up in surprise as a waiter approached her. He laid a long-stemmed white rose beside her plate, and said, quietly, “From Lady Hamilton, Miss.”