"I don't know; it kind of draws across the front, and the sleeves—I have to remember to keep my arms down. I wish you'd look at it."
"You'd have to put it on. How can I tell?"
"Too much trouble."
"Well, then, go on looking frumpy. These home dressmakers!"
Lottie did not look frumpy, as a matter of fact. No one with a figure so vigorous and erect, a back so straight, a head so well set on its fine column of a throat, a habit of such fastidious cleanliness of person, could be frumpy. But she resorted to few feminine wiles of clothing, as of speech or manner. Lottie's laces, and silks and fine white garments, like her dear secret thoughts and fancies, were worn hidden, by the world unsuspected. All the dearer to Lottie for that.
To-night Belle sat dangling her slipper at the end of her toe, her knees crossed. She had a small slim foot and a trick of shooting her pump loose at the heel so that it hung half on half off as she waggled her foot in its fine silk stocking. Henry Kemp had found it an entrancing trick when first they were married. He found it less fascinating now, after twenty years. Sometimes the slipper dropped—accidentally. "Henry dear, my slipper." Well, even the Prince must have remonstrated with Cinderella if she made a practice of the slipper-dropping business after their marriage. Twenty years after.
Belle, dangling the slipper, called in now to Lottie: "Nice party, Lot?"
"Oh, nice enough."
"Who was there?"
"The girls. You know."