‘Oh, that!’ cries Betty eagerly. ‘That’s the poet. Yes, he is, Susan. He’s a real poet. Miss Ricketty told me about him yesterday. He has written sonnets and whole volumes of things, and is quite a poet. Miss Ricketty says that’s why his hair grows like that.’
‘Samson must have been the laureate of his time,’ says Dominick thoughtfully.
‘So that was the poet,’ says Susan, who had heard of his coming from Crosby. ‘Well, he certainly looked queer enough for anything. I wonder’—nervously—‘who was the tall girl sitting next to Mr. Crosby?’
This was the tall girl with whom Crosby had driven away.
‘I don’t know,’ says Betty. ‘Wasn’t she pretty? And wasn’t she beautifully dressed? Oh, Susan, didn’t you want to see yourself in a gown like that?’
‘No,’ says Susan shortly.
‘Well, I did. I wanted to know how I’d look.’
‘As if you didn’t know,’ says Dominick encouragingly. ‘Like Venus herself!’
‘I never heard she had her frocks from Paris,’ says Betty, hunching up an unkind little shoulder against him.
‘You’ve heard so little, you see,’ says Dom, with gentle protest. ‘Now, as a fact, Venus had her frocks made by—’