He stopped short and looked down into the babyish blue eyes uplifted timidly to his.
“Why, hello, Jennie!” he said, smiling. “Where did you come from?”
The girl was very becomingly dressed in dark-blue serge, the jacket thrown jauntily wide, revealing a waist of cheap white lace, which in its turn permitted glimpses of the pink skin and rounded contours beneath. A hat of dark-blue straw, wreathed with small pink roses, rested coquettishly on her light-brown curly hair. At the moment of meeting David thus unexpectedly, the light of youth and love shone vividly over the girl’s insignificant face and figure, irradiating them into a beauty almost noble.
David could hardly help noticing the half infantile, wholly adorable curve of her young brows and the clear blue light of the eyes beneath. Then his curious eyes slowly swept the soft oval of pink cheek and the rosy mouth, parted a little to ease the tumultuous heart-beats which shook the transparent stuff at her throat.
“I didn’t know as you’d want to speak to me, Mr. Whitcomb,” murmured the girl.
Her eyes wandered uncertainly past him into the crowd.
“I s’pose,” she added, thrusting out her pink lips in a pout, “that she’s here somewheres.”
“No,” laughed David. “‘She’ doesn’t happen to be along to-day.”
A wayward impulse prompted his next words.