“Gwen Waring, she is with me for the season.”
“Ah, that queer, sulky, imperturbable, long-legged girl, belonging to those wonderful young fossils at Waring Park. I shouldn’t have thought she’d have got the chance to throw over any match, let alone three unexceptionable ones——”
“Humphrey!”
“What’s up? Gru!—”
He sprang to his feet.
A tall superb girl with a face like a hothouse flower, was standing in the middle of the room, looking at him with a cool aloofness that made his blood run cold. She had heard every word, she must have, his voice was a big one.
This magnificent dominant creature, before whom he felt as a worm, was only an enlarged completed edition of the “sulky, long-legged” slip he used to catch fitful glances of, in his stays with his aunt.
If only he hadn’t classified her in such cool pleasant tones! It was not often the fellow felt at such a disadvantage. If the girl had made a joke now, or even looked as if she could make one! But she knew better than to joke, she had her tactics ready to her hand, and she was determined his impertinence should be brought home to him.
Her own classification never troubled her in the least, it was the good-humoured sneer at her parents which touched her. Was she always to suffer for being the product of such a house?
The next few minutes Strange felt younger than he had done for ten years.