Anne looked across at it. She had often seen it before, but finding it difficult to discover the most tactful observation to make regarding it, had refrained from making any. This time, however, Muriel seemed to notice the direction of Anne’s eyes.
“Tommy made it himself,” she said, stretching out one white arm, from which a flimsy covering of lace and gauze-like material fell away, disclosing its slender roundness. She moved the frame to an angle better calculated to show off its superior qualities.
“Really!” said Anne, politely incredulous, but understanding. It explained what had hitherto been a cause for wonderment, namely, why Muriel should choose to disfigure her room with such a piece of furniture. Its size almost calls for the designation.
“Yes,” said Muriel proudly, “himself. I think,” she continued, contemplating the picture with her head at as one-sided an angle as her recumbent position would allow, “that it is a beautiful frame.” There was the faintest suspicion of a challenge in her voice.
“I am quite sure,” said Anne in a perfectly grave voice, “that you could not possibly have a frame which you would value more. I know I couldn’t if I happened to be you.”
Muriel laughed like a contented child. “Anne, you’re several kinds of angels, and you have the heavenliest way of saying the right thing and yet speaking the truth. Of course I know that its sides are crooked, and that there are little mountains of glue in the corners. But you should have seen Tommy’s face when he brought it to me. The darling was so afraid it was not of quite the most finished workmanship. Oh, Anne, between the comicality of his face and the lop-sided expression of the sticky frame—the glue wasn’t quite dry—and the little lump in my own throat for the darlingness of the thought, I very nearly had hysterics. But I hid them on Tommy’s waistcoat, and I adore the frame.”
“Of course,” said Anne, smiling.
Again there was a little pause. Then Muriel spoke suddenly.
“What do you think of General Carden? He monopolized you in the most disgraceful way last night.”
“I liked him,” returned Anne, calmly ignoring the question of monopoly. “It is delightfully refreshing to meet a man so entirely of the old school of thought and manners.”