Walking on the outside of the fence she eyed the Colonel for a scrutinizing moment, then stopping at the gate, opened it with a slight click, and stood hesitating. He heard the sound, looked up, and met her eyes—blue and inquiring—fixed gravely on him. She had a firmly-modeled, handsome face, full of rich, youthful tints and mellow curves. Her straw hat sent a clean wash of shade to just below her nose. Under this, in the blinding steadiness of the sunlight, her mouth and chin, the former large and with strongly curved lips, looked as smooth and fresh as portions of a ripe fruit. There was hesitation but no embarrassment in her attitude. Even at this first glance one might guess that this was a young woman devoid of self-consciousness and not readily embarrassed.
“Are you Colonel Parrish?” she said in a rather loud, clear voice.
He rose, throwing away his cigar, and replied with an affirmative that he tried not to make astonished.
She ascended the steps, again hesitated, and then held out a sun-burnt hand.
“I’m glad I found you,” she said, as he released it. “I thought perhaps you might have gone on to the Buckeye Belle. Everybody goes there now. My name is Allen, Rosamund Allen. You met my sister June last night.”
“Oh,” murmured the Colonel, and then he gave a weak, “Of course. Sit down.”
He was glad of the moment’s respite that getting her a chair and placing it gave him. She was the second daughter. In that first glance of startled investigation he had seen no particular likeness to either parent. This girl would not tear his heart by looking at him with her mother’s eyes.
“I—I—enjoyed meeting your sister last night,” he said as they found themselves seated facing each other. “She—she—” He did not know what to say. He wondered why the girl had come. Had some one sent her?
She looked at him with her clear, calm eyes, cool and interested. She was unquestionably handsomer than her sister. A year or two younger he guessed, though much larger, a typical Californian in her downy bloom of skin and fullness of contour. Her simple dress had been designed with taste and set with a grace that was imparted more by the beautiful lines of the body it covered than any particular skill in its fashioning. There was the same neatness and care of detail in her humble adornments that he had noticed in her sister’s—the ineradicable daintiness of the woman whose forebears have lived delicately.
“June had such a good time last night,” she said with an air of volubility. “At first she said it was dreadful. Hardly any one asked her to dance, and she didn’t see how she could wait for father, who was going to call for her at twelve. And then you came and introduced those gentlemen to her. After that she had the loveliest time. She didn’t want to go at all when father came. She made him wait till two!”