“Why, she’s quite a child, surely!”
“Oh, no! Patsy is—let me see—nearly eighteen. Mother is so annoyed. You see I keep out of her way, but Pat is noisy about the house. She finds Pat absolutely antagonistic to—well to the spooks and the thought waves. She had hoped Pat would stay over in Germany for six months and acquire a philosophic language. Pat informed mother yesterday that she knew her type of good looks went off early, and she advised mother to get her safely off-hand before she began to fade.” Claudia laughed heartily at the remembrance. “She’s awfully pretty. You don’t remember her?”
“I remember a small child with forget-me-not eyes and flaxen hair, who was always sitting down heavily on choice seedlings in the flower-beds and then crying because she had ‘hurted them.’”
“Yes, that was Patsy. But she’ll get married quite easily. She’s really sweet. She’s got little tricks with her eyes, quite natural, not affected—and her eyebrows go up in a funny way that makes her look like an intelligent cock robin. By the way, have robins got eyebrows? They seem eyebrows all over, don’t they? Oh! Pat will make a hit when she comes out.”
Gilbert looked at her curiously. Did Claudia not think about getting married? He hazarded a question in a bantering, rather intimate way.
“And when are you going off?”
“It sounds like a firework, doesn’t it? I don’t mind telling you in a burst of confidence that Aunt Lucretia thinks the squib is a little damp. It hasn’t gone bang yet! But Pat will make a brilliant firework. Mind you don’t get burnt.”
The music had struck up again, and Claudia took up her programme with a faint sigh.
Gilbert put his hand over the little white-gloved one that held the card. “Who are you dancing with? Never mind who it is. Throw him over. Yes,” he said firmly, as she protested, “I know it isn’t your usual habit. But—well, isn’t it a special night somehow? It’s my birthday for one thing and——”
“Oh, is it? Many happy returns. You got my photograph this morning?”