“Why, of course!” cried Dick, digging his hands deep into his pockets, and giving himself a little gleeful shake, “I’ve been puzzling my head to grasp what it was. I’d forgotten all about the beauty specialists. It must have cost an awful lot, Hal.”
“It did,” she told them; “but you’ve no idea how clever they are. They can renovate the most hopeless faces. I’m sure you’d all find it worth while running to the expense.”
“Now, come Hal,” objected Quin laughingly. “We can’t have the ornament of our flat insulted like that. The rising barrister needs no beauty specialist, you must admit.”
Hal looked up at the giant with twitching lips.
“I was going to suggest a brain specialist for him. It won’t be much use getting lots of briefs because he looks nice in his wig and gown if he hasn’t the brains to win his cases.”
Hermon caught her by the shoulders to shake her, and at that moment Lord Denton quietly entered the room.
Lorraine had met him in the hall, while hastening across for something she had forgotten, and told him to go in, so that he entered unannounced, and saw the group before they knew of his presence.
Especially he seemed to see the two on the hearthrug. Hal, with her shining eyes, rising coulour, and laughing lips, and Hermon with a sort of answering glow in his face, boyishly gripping her shoulders as if to shake her. He stood and looked at them a moment without speaking, then Hal espied him, and thinking he had that instant entered, exclaimed:
“Help!... Help!... Lord Denton, I am caught in the clutches of Leviathan.”
He came forward smillingly.