“Don’t be ponderous. Where’s Caroline?”
“Caroline, Miss Dixon, is out with Arthur, and will doubtless return in much the same state of rainwater as yourself.”
She disappeared towards Carrie’s quarters, her dress making a wet slap on the door as she whisked round. I rose to prepare brandy during her absence.
It should be mentioned that I was confined to my room with a slight attack of rheumatism, which my considerate friends persisted in regarding as gout. As a matter of fact the affection was purely muscular, and I indignantly repudiated the fuller flavour of the alleged complaint. My portliness must not be confounded with decadence.
Disconsolately enough, I had been fingering and sorting old letters, turning out drawer after drawer of forgotten trifles, and feeling none the younger in consequence. It was borne in upon me that I had a history, or some record of trivialities that passed as such; and these little drifted relics of the past had curiously discounted the glamour of what was going to happen to-morrow. Except for the unexpected shower, I should probably have been left to this melancholy occupation all day; and Millicent’s forced visit was very welcome.
She reappeared in garments of Caroline’s, passable in style, but with marked qualifications in the fit. She tops Caroline by three inches. I had often wondered idly where that three inches was accounted for, and how it was distributed. I knew now.
I surveyed her critically.
“Shoulders not bad,” I remarked, walking round her, while she stood at a laughing attention for kit inspection. “Waist—turn round—hm!—an inch and a half at most; all right so long as you don’t lean forward. Skirt—ah, the skirt—well, well, I’m past such things. Really, it’s not bad for an improvisation.”
“I couldn’t find Carrie’s slippers,” she said, putting forward a small foot.
The skirt had already revealed the silk-clad toes. I got her a particularly large pair of my own, brought her the brandy, which she drank like a sensible woman of twenty-eight, placed her an armchair near the fire, and resumed my own seat. Then I sought her eyes.