Pixie O’Shaughnessy smiled. There was evidently no doubt in her own mind as to her reply. The slim figure straightened, the little head tilted in air. Quick and crisp came the reply—
“I can make people do what I like!”
“Can you, though!” exclaimed Stanor blankly. The statement seemed to threaten a mysteriously personal application, and he relapsed into a ruminating silence, the while his companion employed herself cheerfully with her dinner and the looks and conversation of her companions.
It was one of Pixie’s special gifts to be able to do at least three things at the same time with quite a fair amount of success. She could, for instance, write a business-like letter while carrying on an animated conversation with a friend, and keeping an eye on a small child tottering around the room. Brain, eyes, and limb were alike so alert that what to slower natures would have been impossible, to her involved no effort at all.
Therefore, when about two minutes later Stanor opened his lips again to utter a short, urgent “How?” she had not the slightest difficulty in switching back to the subject, though she had been at the moment in the midst of an absorbing calculation as to the number of yards of lace on a dress of a lady farther down the table, and in drawing mental designs of the way it was put on, to enclose to Bridgie in her next letter home.
“How?”
“I understand them,” said Pixie deeply. “You can open any door if you have the key, but most people go on banging when it’s shut. I wait till I find my key, and then I keep it ready until the moment arrives when I wish to get in.”
Stanor’s broad shoulders gave an involuntary movement which might almost have been taken for a shiver. Once again he felt a mysterious conviction of a personal application. All his life long the phrase had rung in his ears, “I don’t understand you!” “If I could once understand you!” and for lack of that understanding there had been trouble and coldness between himself and his nearest relative. Proverbially he was difficult to understand; and he had prided himself on the reputation. Who wanted to be a simple, transparent fellow, whom any one could lead? This was the first time in his life that he had come into contact with a girl who announced herself an expert understander of human nature. He wondered vaguely what, given the initial success, Pixie would wish him to do, hesitated on the point of inquiry, thought better of it and turned the conversation to impersonal topics.
After dinner Pixie sat on a sofa in the drawing-room enjoying a temporary tête-à-tête with the other girl visitor. Miss Ward’s hair was, if possible, smoother than ever, and she wore a velvet dress almost exactly matching it in shade, which seemed to Pixie’s unsophisticated eyes an extraordinarily sumptuous garment for a young girl to wear. Her eyes were brown, too—bright, quick-glancing eyes full of interest and curiosity. When she spoke her nationality became once more conspicuous.
“Miss Pat-ricia O’Shaughnessy, I guess you and I have got to be real good friends! I’ve been spoiling for another girl to enjoy this trip with me. If you’re having a good time, it makes it twice as good to have a girl to go shares, and compare notes, and share the jokes. You look to me as if you could enjoy a joke.”