“We are good friends.”
“Just about what you please, I should say, if you know her well, and make money out of her?”
“That is, jewelry?”
“Ye—es.”
“Thanks.” Peter turned.
“Who is she, Peter? I thought you never did anything so small as that. Nothing, or four figures, has always seemed your rule?”
“This had extenuating circumstances,” smiled Peter.
So when Peter shook hands, the next evening, with the very swagger young lady who stood beside her mother, receiving, he was told:
“It’s perfectly lovely! Look.” And the little wrist was held up to him. “And so were the flowers. I couldn’t carry a tenth of them, so I decided to only take papa’s. But I put yours up in my room, and shall keep them there.” Then Peter had to give place to another, just as he had decided that he would have one of the flowers from the bunch she was carrying, or—he left the awful consequences of failure blank.
Peter stood for a moment unconscious of the other people, looking at the pretty rounded figure in the dainty evening dress of French open-work embroidery. “I didn’t think she could be lovelier than she was in her street and riding dresses but she is made for evening dress,” was his thought. He knew this observation wasn’t right, however, so he glanced round the room, and then walked up to a couple.