“Oh, yes, of course. And I’m not sure that this particular girl would do it either. But that’s the usual thing to say, isn’t it, when a very pretty girl is left unexpectedly poor?”
“Yes.”
Gerard answered quite shortly, and looked at the photograph again. And at that moment the door opened, and an exclamation rose to his lips as he recognized in the new arrival the very girl whose picture he held in his hand.
He felt the blood rush to his face as he looked at her. He saw at once that the absence of color from the photograph had given him an altogether wrong impression of what the girl herself would be like. She was of medium height, slender, pale, brown-haired, brown-eyed, and her dress was plain almost to dowdiness.
But she carried herself so well, her figure was so graceful, her expression so intelligent, and her smile so charming, that she attracted instinctive attention in greater measure than any of the other girls in the room.
“Rachel!” cried Mrs. Aldington.
“Miss Davison!” cried her son Arthur at the same moment.
And the new-comer was brought into the group near the fire and surrounded, while Gerard Buckland, at a little distance, listened to the tones of her voice, and approved of them as he had done of every detail concerning her.
Only one thing about her seemed amiss. Well as she wore her plain, almost shabby clothes, neat and graceful as she looked in them, Gerard felt that they were not the clothes which she ought to be wearing, that her beauty demanded a better setting than the plain serge skirt, the black jacket, the gray felt mushroom hat with its trimming of a quill and a big black rosette, which, though they became her, were not quite smart enough either for the occasion or for her own type of womanhood.
Gerard saw the glance of Rose Aldington wander in his direction with a sly look, and he hoped she would not forget to find an opportunity to introduce him to the interesting guest.