"Hold yourself up, my child," he said very decidedly. "I want to see a nice flat, and straight back."
He made no other criticism, and none was needed.
Alex had gauged the extent of his dismay.
IV
Holidays
"Mother, may I ask Queenie Torrance to tea?"
Alex had rehearsed the words so often to herself that they had almost become meaningless.
Her heart beat thickly with the anticipation of a refusal, when at last she found courage and opportunity to utter the little stilted phrase, with a tongue that felt dry and in a voice that broke nervously in her throat.
"What do you say, darling?" absently inquired Lady Isabel; and Alex had to say it again.