He blushed as Monica jumped up for a nearer inspection, to discover that the close sprinkling of dark-brown freckles on the egg-smooth young surface of his upper lip had deceived the sisterly observation.
"The mustache will come," Monica said with a smile, "and then you will begin to be more of a dandy."
He fancied that her look betrayed a shade of disappointment. "No wonder! such a beast as I must look!" he thought. But he said with rather a clumsy air of indifference:
"I daresay my clothes are a bit shabby, perhaps more than a bit! But, you see, I've been knocking about on the rail—and aboard steamers—and so on."
"Still, you could be—what Juliette would call more soigné." There was a little accent of sisterly rebuke in the words. "And I have talked to her so much about you——"
"That you're afraid she'll chaff you, now she has beheld the wonder! If she did I shouldn't be surprised! ... And if I'd known you wanted me to turn up a thundering swell, I'd have polished myself up a bit. My hair is too long, of course.... But—most British fellows run shaggy after a year or two at a German University."
He spoke as easily and naturally as was possible, with a lump in the throat embraced by the paper collar, and a savage pain tearing at his heart.
She said:
"It is a bargain then, and I shall see my old Caro looking as he ought to look, next time he comes here! ... Tell me, when will next time be?"
He stuttered, inwardly writhing: