Inspired, Geoffrey said: "It's a brand-new cocktail, a super-cocktail, made for the most beautiful creature in the world, and I'm calling it La Lola."
Lola was so much pleased by this compliment that she held out her hand to Geoffrey, and said that it was a pretty idea, and he should tell her how the cocktail was made so that she herself (supposing that she liked it) could adopt it. After two cautious sips she said graciously that it was quite agreeable, and would be a very good cocktail indeed if a little absinthe were added.
Then the missing Concetta erupted into the room with many voluble ejaculations delivered in a foreign tongue. She was followed by a train of dress-boxes, and Lola at once became extremely animated, and ordained that everything should be unpacked at once, and her bath prepared, and a certain box of powder found immediately.
"I think we'd better leave her now," Geoffrey said reverently. "You'd like us to clear out, wouldn't you, darling?"
Yes, Lola would like them to go at once; it was terrible that her trunks had arrived so late; there was no time at all to make a suitable toilette for dinner.
Geoffrey signed to Dinah to go, and followed her, very softly closing the door behind them.
On the landing Dinah leaned against an oak chest, and rather thoughtfully regarded him. A lock of his long, fair hair hung over his brow, and his face was flushed with nervous excitement. He was a handsome, slightly effeminate youth with large eyes, and a mouth that quivered a little when he was at all agitated. He affected a style of dress which was considered by his set to be artistic, and was addicted to large-brimmed hats, polo sweaters, and pleated dress shirts. He had always been delicate, a subject in his boyhood to nerve-storms, which were the dread of all who came in contact with him. He was frightened of his father, and except amongst his chosen intimates he was not very popular with other men. His air of highly strung fragility, and a certain charm of manner, however, appealed to a great many women, and quite a number of sympathetic matrons felt a distinct desire to mother him.
Not being of these, Dinah felt no such desire, but she was sorry for him, and treated him with a mixture of forbearance and bracing common sense.
He turned to her now in his impetuous way, and stammered: "Isn't she wonderful? Isn't she lovely? Have you ever seen anything so enchanting as the way she looks at one?"
"Never," said Dinah accommodatingly.