Lewis straddled a chair, folded his arms on the back of it, and looked Vi over with a professional eye. She was posed for a painter, not for a sculptor, but even so he found her worth looking at. A woman can't sit on one foot, tap the floor with the other, and lean back, without showing the lines of her body.
"Mere length," said Lewis, "is a great handicap to a woman, but add proportion to length, and you have the essentials of beauty. Short and pretty; long and beautiful. D'you get that? A short woman may be beautiful as a table decoration, but let her stand up or lie down and, presto! she's just pretty."
Vi reached out one long arm toward the fire, and nicked off the ash from her cigarette. She tried to hide the tremor that Lewis's words brought to her limbs and the color that his frankly admiring eyes brought to the pallor of her cheeks. She was a woman that quivered under admiration.
"Have you never—don't you ever kiss women?" she asked, looking at him with slanted eyes.
Lewis shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, I suppose so. That is—well, to tell you the truth, I don't remember."
For a second Vi stared at him; then she laughed, and he laughed with her.
"Oh! oh!" she cried, "I believe you're telling the truth!"
They sat and talked. Nelton brought in tea; then they sat and talked some more. A distant bell boomed seven o'clock. Vi started, rose slowly to her feet, and stretched.
"Have you got your invitation for the Ruttle-Marter fancy-dress ball next week?" she asked, stifling a yawn.