‘Did you expect him to have two heads?’ asks Susan, with a rather ungrateful levity, considering James is an old friend of hers.
‘I hardly hoped for so much,’ says Crosby. ‘I’m not greedy. As a rule I am thankful for small mercies—perhaps’—with a thoughtful glance at her—‘because big ones don’t come my way. And I don’t think you need be so very angry with me, Susan, because I think the excellent James less ugly than’—with a reproachful air—‘I had been led to believe.’
‘I think him hideous,’ says Susan promptly, and with no attempt at softening of any sort.
‘Alas! Poor James! But do you really?’
‘Very really,’ says Susan, laughing. ‘Just look at his profile.’
‘It’s a good honest one,’ says Crosby. ‘If a trifle——’
‘Well, I suppose it’s the trifle,’ says Susan.
‘I have seen worse.’
‘Oh! you can think him an Apollo if you like,’ says Susan, with a little shrug. Shrugs from Susan are so unexpected that Crosby regards her with interest. The unexpected is often very delightful, and certainly Susan, at this moment, with her little new petulant mood upon her, is as sweet as sunshine. It seems all at once to Crosby that he is seeing her now again for the first time, with a fresh idea of her. What a little slender maiden—and how beautiful, even in her thin ‘uneducated’ frock, that has so often seen the tub, and is of a fashion of five years ago! And yet, in a way, that old frock is kind to her—who would not be kind to her? It stands to her, in spite of its age. It throws out all the beauties of her delicately-built, but healthy young figure.
Susan here, in this primitive gown, is Susan! Susan got up in silks and laces and satins, and all the fripperies of fashion, what would she be like?