When on the morning of the great day of the fancy ball Miss Perry entered the presence of Jim Lascelles as the faithful embodiment, down to the minutest particular, of Gainsborough’s masterpiece, that assiduous young fellow was seized with despair. It took the form of a gasp.
“Goose Girl,” said he, “I shall have to give up coming here. I paint you all the morning, I think of you all the afternoon and evening, and I dream of you all night. You know you have rather knocked a hole in my little world.”
“There will be ices to-night,” said Miss Perry. “Lord Cheriton almost thinks pink ices are nicest.”
“Confound Lord Cheriton,” said Jim, with unpardonable bluntness, “and confound pink ices!”
“I thought I would just put on my new frock,” said Miss Perry, “to see if you think it is as nice as you think the lilac is.”
“I have no thoughts at all this morning,” said Jim Lascelles, “about your new frock or about anything else. My mind is a chaos, my wretched brain goes round and round, and what do you suppose it is because of?”
“I don’t know,” said Miss Perry.
“It is because of you,” said Jim Lascelles. “Look at that canvas you’ve ruined. Yellow hair—Gainsborough hat—lilac frock—full-fledged cream-bun appearance. You will lose me my commission, which means a cool hundred pounds out of my pocket, and my mamma has denied herself common necessaries to pay for my education. Goose Girl,” Jim Lascelles concluded a little hoarsely, “I am growing afraid of you. You are a sorceress. Something tells me that you will be my ruin.”
“I wish you had seen Muffin’s mauve,” said Miss Perry, who showed very little concern for Jim’s ruin.
“I have not the least desire to see Muffin’s mauve,” said Jim Lascelles. “In fact, I thank the God who looks after poor painters—if there is such a Deity, which I take leave to doubt—that I have not seen it. But I intend to ask you this question: What right have you, Goose Girl, to grow so extravagantly perfect, to get yourself up in this ravishing and entrancing manner, and then to come to ask a poor wight of a painting chap, who is daubing away for dear bread and butter, whether he thinks your new frock is as nice as the lilac was?”