"Oh, your heavenly cousin, Annette!" said the green-eyed. "I adore his hair!" She stood before a large photograph, framed elaborately.
"He is a sweet boy," Annette had responded, "but so particular! I never knew any one quite so fastidious. It is fearfully hard to please him!"
"Does he get crushes?" asked the green-eyed.
"My dear," said Annette, "it would be impossible. He's terribly intellectual and all that, and girls so easily offend him. He doesn't say so, but he simply stops paying them any attention."
The group gathered about the picture to admire. It showed a rather nice looking boy, with an outdoor flavour, and eyes that questioned.... The face was too young to have character.
"He's had on long trousers for six years!" said Annette. There was a hushed silence. "Isn't he divine!" gurgled one young person at length. Cecilia had only looked. The shadowy dream man vanished. The picture boy took his place.
This day Cecilia walked alone as usual. Mrs. De Pui was an advocate of trust as a developer of "womanly instinct," so on a stipulated number of streets, the girls were allowed to walk unchaperoned. They went in little groups, all except Cecilia. She was her own small group.
To-day she walked alone, at least it seemed so, but by her Cecilia felt K. Stuyvesant Twombly. "I admire art," he was saying. His voice, curiously enough, was Mrs. De Pui's.
"So do I," agreed Cecilia. "Beauty develops us, the best of us, and brings a shining light into the soul." Cecilia stopped. Then because she was very truthful she went on: "That is not original. The man who lectures us on Art said it. He has whiskers and false teeth, I believe, for they click when he says, 'Renaissance.'" ... "Oh, Heavens!" thought Cecilia, "I will never be a lady. That would not be the way to talk to the ideal man. About teeth!—false ones!"
Then the cat had appeared. Rather Cecilia had nearly walked on it. It was a limp little grey and white heap, its fur half wet from the gutter, and eyes half closed.