“Don’t,” cried Mrs. Rivington shrilly, gauging in ten seconds the probable cost of Claudia’s dress. “I’m an Imperialist, and I wave flags and put up bunting and do all sorts of loyal things, and the red on a Union Jack doesn’t agree with my complexion, so I really am quite genuine and what-you-may-call-it. Don’t run down the King to me.” She fluttered off, her eyes roving restlessly over the couples she was pairing.
Left together, Claudia and the American smiled. He was the type of American that suggests the mettlesome racehorse, lean-flanked, long-limbed, not a spare ounce of flesh on his bones, relying on training and determination to carry him through the race. He was unusually fair, with a suggestion that he might have had a Viking ancestor, yet there was nothing colourless about him. Claudia wondered what he might be, millionaire, financier, hoping to become one, railroad magnate, what? She was sure he was a worker, it was written in every line of him.
“I am certain women like our hostess are really and truly the props of your empire,” he said gravely. “The sacrifice of a complexion, what can compare with it? Sons, lands, money—what can touch it?”
They both laughed as they moved in to dinner. As Claudia had predicted, Mrs. Rivington was spreading herself over Frank Hamilton. Littleton caught the exchange of glances between him and his partner, and made a mental note. He was by way of studying Englishwomen.
“Are you here for long?” asked Claudia, unfolding her serviette.
“Maybe I’ll be here for six months or so. I know you are wondering what is my particular branch of money-making. I’m a publisher—Littleton, Robins and Co., and we’re starting a branch over here as an experiment. I want to stay for a bit and direct it.”
Her interest was aroused. Everything to do with books had a fascination for her ever since Colin Paton had taught her to love them. And to her a publisher was not a merchant, a mere purveyor of books to the public, but something dedicated to the service of art. The glamour of the books was around the man who produced them. She knew of his firm as one that specialized in art books and good belles lettres. She had several books with his imprint on her shelves. So the talk flowed on smoothly after this happy opening, neither having to consider what they should say next to while away the dinner-hour. Claudia found herself more interested than she had been for a long time at a dinner-table. He had not the delicate illuminating touch of Colin Paton, he lacked the subtleties of his imagination and sound classical scholarship, but he knew all the books of the day and was appreciative of the good in them.
Towards the end of dinner he looked at her with a whimsical twinkle in his blue eyes and said, “I wonder if you will be amused or annoyed if I tell you something. I am not sure how an Englishwoman takes such things. Personally I think the photograph of a beautiful woman should be public property, but I realize she may not.”
Claudia turned a wondering face upon him.
“Your photograph, in the shape of a coloured book-cover, has gone into every part of the United States, although”—with an appraisingly admiring glance—“the artist did not get your colouring correctly. He made your hair dead black and your skin and colouring too pink and commonplace.”