“No one will know you, dear. No one will look at you.”
“Do you mean that for comfort, may I ask? I want to be looked at. ‘’Tis sad to think no eye will watch for us, and grow brighter when we come,’” quoted Madge in sentimental accents, which made Philippa giggle in her turn. Then for some mysterious reason she blushed again, and strolled over towards the window.
“Hot, dear?” queried Madge blandly. “Room rather warm, perhaps—too big fire.”
“So extravagant, too, on a mild day like this! I really must speak to Mary about using so much coal,” said Theo, with a frown. She went on with her sewing, apparently unconscious of the wide-eyed amazement with which Philippa regarded her. The skies were going to fall indeed when Miss Theo troubled herself about an item of domestic economy!
There was something rather pathetic about the glee with which the four sisters made their toilets a few hours later. The night’s entertainment, which would have seemed so tame and ordinary to most girls of their age, appeared a very frenzy of excitement after their year of hard work and privation. They laughed and chattered like so many magpies, ran about from room to room in lace petticoats and pretty low bodices, and sat in turns before the dining-room fire, while Hope—happy possessor of natural curls!—heated irons and waved and crimped with such artistic skill that, as Madge gleefully declared, the three heads were ‘transformations’ indeed—far more like toupées than natural growth.
Philippa wore her mother’s lace, which gave a regal air to the old black silk dress; Hope was lovely, as usual, in her professional white; Madge’s “subdued elegance” proved exceedingly becoming; but Theo was distinctly the most imposing figure of the four. She possessed the Frenchwoman’s talent for putting on her clothes and adding those little touches which go so far towards making an effective whole, and her sisters exclaimed with surprised admiration as she came rustling into the drawing-room, a chaplet of violets crowning the graceful head, and a couple of black feathers fastened jauntily at the side of the low corsage by a paste buckle, which looked exactly like a family heirloom, and not in the least as if it had been unpicked from the side of a felt hat but ten minutes before. Thrown over her shoulders, too, was quite a vision in the way of evening-cloaks, manufactured out of a summer cape, a lace collar, and the beloved feather boa tacked on as an edging. The cape was unlined, and far too thin a covering for a winter evening; but, girl-like, Theo declared that she was “broiled,” and insisted that suffocation would be the result of wearing the nice, warm, ugly shawl which Philippa pressed upon her.
The Hermit came upstairs in his dress-clothes, bearing in his hands four immaculate white camellias, which had seemed to his old-fashioned notions appropriate offerings to present to his girl guests. It was sweet of him to have thought of flowers at all, but—camellias! Theo thanked her stars for the violets which she was already wearing, and dashed from the room to warn Madge, who promptly stole the chrysanthemums from the dinner-table and pinned them in a conspicuous position. Hope, of course, was too gentle to refuse what had been meant so kindly; while as for Philippa, to judge by her ejaculations of delight, it would appear that nothing under the sun could have given her so much pleasure.
They drove away from the door in a couple of four-wheelers, two happy, smiling girls on either back seat, faced by a hungry, dress-coated man. The dinner was everything that fancy had painted it: all sorts of delightful things to eat, disguised under French names, and looking so pretty that it seemed a sin to disturb the dishes. Music, lights, interesting people all around, at whom it was a pleasure to look, and who looked back in their turn, as if equally pleased by what they saw. Steve grew quite frisky in his enjoyment, and Philippa and the Hermit became delightfully and unconsciously absorbed in their own conversation. The little party lingered over dessert, loath to leave so interesting a position, but the settees in the hall were presently discovered to afford an even better vantage-ground for observing their neighbours.
Steve came over and demanded a place beside his three younger sisters. “Neil is submitting the synopsis of his next book to Phil. You seem much jollier over here,” he said innocently, and the girls watched Philippa’s absorbed face in an ecstasy of admiration.
“Doesn’t she do it well? Who would think, to look at her, that the very title is beyond her comprehension?”