After writing the letter Patty felt less homesick. It seemed, somehow, to bring Thursday nearer, to write about it. She began to dress for dinner, and, in a spirit of mischief, she took pains to make a most fetching toilette.
Her frock was of white mousseline de soie that twinkled into foolish little ruffles all round the hem.
More tiny frills gambolled around the low-cut circular neck and nestled against Patty’s soft, round arms.
Her curly hair was parted, and massed low at the back of her neck, and behind one ear she tucked a half-blown pink rosebud.
The long, dreamy day had roused in Patty a contrary wilfulness, and she was quite ready for fun if any came her way.
At dinner Mrs. Van Reypen monopolised the conversation. She talked mostly to Philip, but occasionally addressed a remark to Patty. She was exceedingly polite to her, but made her feel that her share of the conversation must be formal and conventional. Then she would chatter to her nephew about matters unknown to Patty, and then perhaps again throw an observation about the weather at her “companion.”
Patty accepted all this willingly enough, but Philip didn’t.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off Patty, who was looking her very prettiest, and whose own eyes, when she raised them, were full of smiles.
But in vain he endeavoured to make her talk to him.
Patty remembered Mrs. Van Reypen’s injunctions, and, though her bewitching personality made such effort useless, she tried to be absolutely and uninterestingly silent.