“Yes,” she said; “I think you’ll find it is. Good-night.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In her packing Alexina had left out a muslin dress for Mrs. Leroy’s evening. Going up from the hurried supper to dress, she glanced at it, then drew forth a box from a trunk and pulled the contents therefrom. The dress that came forth shimmered and gleamed and floated; it was a thing that must have enfolded any woman to beautiful lines, and have made any throat, any head, lift. It was a purchase she had been in a way ashamed of, tempted to it in a moment of weakness, urged on by Molly.
Now she laid it forth and dressed with care, grave as some young priestess. Molly watched her curiously. Even at the hotel there had been occasions for only simple clothes.
But the girl even brought forth some leather cases. Generally it was her little pose that she did not care for jewels, but in her heart she loved them, as every woman does, primitive or civilized, young or three-score-and-ten. Now she put on what she had. Of late the fairness of Malise had deepened into abiding beauty, yet to-night it was the garb she was emphasizing it would seem, and what it stood for, not the personality.
“You’re curious,” said Molly. “I would have thought it was a time for the simplest.”
“Should you?” said Alexina.
The evening turned into a really spontaneous little affair. It was the sort of thing the young people of Aden—dwellers in the various frame houses about the town, all sojourners from a common cause, somebody’s health—it was the sort of thing these young people got up about every other night in the year. Two mandolins, a violin, and a harp made music. A college boy with a cough, and a Mexican bar-keeper played the mandolins, the local boot and shoe dealer the violin, an Italian the harp, and the whole called itself a string band.