"But why on earth should you obey Miss von Schwarzenberg?"
"Because Greta's the cleverest as well as the most splendid person in the world." She glowed with it. "And knows more in a minute than I do in a year."
Napier laughed at that reason, so Miss Ellis produced another. "And then, you see, ever since I was quite young I always have obeyed Greta—when I was good!"—she threw in quickly with a self-convicting laugh.
"How long have you known Miss von Schwarzenberg?"
"Oh, for ages. Ever since I was seventeen."
"That must have been a long time ago!"
"Well, it is. It's going on six years. Will it hold me too?" She looked doubtfully at the brass bar of the fender.
"Oh, yes," he reassured her, "it would hold ten of you." His smiling glance took note of the small-boned hands that clutched the brass. From the delicate ankles and the impossible feet, up to the slim neck, there wasn't enough substance in her to furnish forth a good British specimen of half her age. Yet when she stood up she was not only tall, she was almost commanding. That was partly carriage, he decided, and partly—well, what was it?
"The trouble about Greta," she went on, "is that she's a person everybody is always wanting. Then, added to that, she is the best daughter in the world. Every year she went home for several months. But she always got back in time!" The girl smiled an odd smile, not as though intended for Napier at all. "She always got back (we've often talked about it) just as I was about to commit some awful mistake."
Napier was morally certain he could have got her—if only for the honor and glory of Greta—to enumerate one or two of these timely rescues, if, by a stroke of rank bad luck, Julian hadn't appeared at that moment.