“So that’s the way the wind blows,” thought Tootles, noticing the light that came into the childish face as she looked up at the rugged globe-trotter.
“Why, bless my soul, is this to be a habit, Millie?” said Flick encouragingly.
“Please—if you’ll let me,” she said eagerly.
Flick gave the permission with the air of one parting with a string of pearls. The three men, lounging over their morning pipes, followed with delicious satisfaction the young girl routing the dust, and such is the soul-delight that such rare feminine spectacles engender in the masculine mind, that they found her, all at once, amazingly young, graceful, and romantically pretty.
“There’s lots and lots of dust,” said Millie, shaking her head. “I can’t get it all out at once.”
“I should like to make a sketch of her bending down like that,” said Tootles pensively. “Beautiful line—charming!”
“What a cracking idea for a heroine,” said Flick, who was stirred to creative rashness.
O’Leary, who understood better than the others, leaned back dreamily, puffing in contentment.
At this moment the door opened, and Belle Shaler slouched in, in a manner which would have set the hearts of fashionable débutantes afire with envy, and stopped short, her shocked hair whirling around her saucy face in amazement at the sight of Millie on a chair, caressing the dragon’s tail with a dust-cloth.
“For the love of Mike, woman, what’s struck you?” she exclaimed, though in somewhat stronger terms. “Degrading yourself for this bunch of loafers and sofa-warmers!”