“Do you see that little dimple just by the chin, Hash? My goodness, I’d give something to see that girl smile!” He replaced the paper in his note-case and sighed. “Love is a wonderful thing, Hash.”
Mr. Todhunter’s ample mouth curled sardonically.
“When you’ve seen as much of life as I have,” he replied, “you’d rather have a cup of tea.”
CHAPTER TWO
KAY OF VALLEY FIELDS
THE nameless individual who had torn from its setting the photograph which had so excited the admiration of Sam Shotter had, as has been already indicated, torn untidily. Had he exercised a little more care, that lovelorn young man would have seen beneath the picture the following legend:
Miss Kay Derrick, Daughter of Col. Eustace
Derrick, of Midways Hall, Wilts.
And if he had happened to be in Piccadilly Circus on a certain afternoon some three weeks after his conversation with Hash Todhunter, he might have observed Miss Derrick in person. For she was standing on the island there waiting for a Number Three omnibus.
His first impression, had he so beheld her, would certainly have been that the photograph, attractive though it was, did not do her justice. Four years had passed since it had been taken, and between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two many girls gain appreciably in looks. Kay Derrick was one of them. He would then have observed that his views on her appearance had been sound. Her eyes, as he had predicted, were blue—a very dark, warm blue like the sky on a summer night—and her hair, such of it as was visible beneath a becoming little hat, was of a soft golden brown. The third thing he would have noticed about her was that she looked tired. And, indeed, she was. It was her daily task to present herself at the house of a certain Mrs. Winnington-Bates in Thurloe Square, South Kensington, to read to that lady and to attend to her voluminous correspondence. And nobody who knew Mrs. Winnington-Bates at all intimately would have disputed the right of any girl who did this to look as tired as she pleased.
The omnibus arrived and Kay climbed the steps to the roof. The conductor presented himself, punch in hand.
“Fez, pliz.”