“We haven’t all the same luck,” Jacob observed.
“Dad rushes home on Saturdays so tired,” she went on, “and then wonders why he plays golf so badly, wonders why mother isn’t always cheerful, and why we girls can’t dress on twopence a week. Why, stockings alone,”—she lifted her foot from the ground, gazed pensively at it for a moment and then suddenly returned it. Her ankle was certainly shapely, and the brevity of her skirts and a slight breeze permitted a just appreciation of a good many inches of mysterious white hose. “But of course you don’t know anything about the price of women’s clothes,” she broke in with a laugh. “I hope you don’t mind my hair looking a perfect mop. I never can keep it tidy out of doors, and I hate a hat.”
Jacob patiently did his best.
“I like to see girls without their hats when they have hair as pretty as yours,” he assured her, “and some day or other you must play me a round of golf for a dozen pairs of stockings.”
“Wouldn’t I just love to!” she exclaimed with joy. “Now or any other old time! I warn you that I should cheat, though. The vision of a dozen pairs of stockings melting into thin air because of your wonderful play would be too harrowing.—What on earth is that?”
Jacob, too, was listening with an air of suddenly awakened interest. Up the hill came a black speck, emitting from behind a cloud of smoke and punctuating its progress with the customary series of explosions.
“I do wish I had a two-seater,” the girl sighed.
“I rather believe it’s some one for me,” Jacob said, stepping eagerly forward.
The girl remained by his side. Felix brought the car to the side of the road which wound its way across the common, shook the dust from his clothes and waved his hand joyously to Jacob.