“Oh, lord!” he said. “That baby! Let her run wild for a bit longer.”
“You haven’t to live with her,” she said. “But I only mean a nursery governess. She is getting beyond the control of coloured nurses. I am hoping I shall get Blanche Maitland. She is so nice with children.”
“Blanche... Oh, I know,” he said.
His glance followed hers across the room to where the girl Mrs Carruthers was bent on his marrying was talking with their host. So Pamela’s domestic arrangements were to clash with his. He smiled at the fancy. Blanche Maitland was a tall girl, with a noticeably good figure, a clear skin, and fine, dark, slumbrous eyes. Her face in repose was calm and unemotional and difficult to read; when she smiled it lighted wonderfully. She did not smile readily, but she looked really handsome and delightfully shy when surprised into laughter. She was laughing at the moment Dare looked at her: he did not immediately remove his gaze.
“She is handsome,” he observed.
“Is she?” Pamela regarded the subject of their talk with renewed interest. “I never thought her that—but I suppose she is.”
“She is,” he affirmed.
“It isn’t a necessary qualification in a governess,” she said.
“It would be, if I were engaging one,” he returned. “I should make that and an agreeable voice the principal requirements. Personally, I am interested in good-looking faces. And plain people haven’t a monopoly of the virtues, you know.”
“No,” she answered. “But they occasionally more than make up the deficit in looks in agreeable qualities.”