"You?" he cries, staggering back, and shading his eyes as if overcome by the vision. "Who are you, pray—the Queen of Sheba?—Cleopatra?"
"Miss Pauline Lefroy, at your service, exemplifying the old proverb of 'Fine feathers make fine birds.' Now, honestly, what do you think of my feathers, Tom?"
Pauline steps forward, giving her train a brisk twitch, and poses under the chandelier, her lithe stately figure draped in clouds of silky gauze, her masses of dusky hair piled high on her head, interwoven with chains of pearls, her lovely gypsy face sparkling with the glow of excitement and anticipated pleasure.
"'Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of Night
As a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear,'"
quotes Armstrong dramatically. "Will that homage to your plumage do fair sister-in-law?"
"Yes, it sounds like Shakespeare or Milton. Shakespeare, is it? 'Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of Night like a—' What?"
"'Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear.'"
"It is a fine idea, strongly put—better than being told flatly that I was nice, like a bit of well-fried beefsteak. And so you think I shall do?"
"By Jove, yes," thinks he, in startled admiration. "I rather think you will, Miss Polly! What a splendid specimen of womanhood you are, to be sure! Strange I never seemed to take in the power of your comeliness until to-night!"
He glances at the two sisters standing side by side—at the girl, lastly, who, in a ragged cotton dress, without even the ornament of ladylike neatness, without one word or smile of attractive intent, chained his senses in one luckless moment and robbed him of his peace forever. He shakes his head; it is of no use going over the old story again; the mischief is done, and there is an end of it.