Once inside my room I gave way to a most odd mixture of despondency and exultation. What had happened to me? What did this odd something inside me which seemed as if it would like to start me dancing, mean? Where did it come from? How? And why? What was the explanation of the singular behaviour of those men; of all those men? I could have cried, if I had not felt so disposed to laugh. It was most confusing.
On the dressing-table was the scrap of paper on which those mysterious words had been so mysteriously written. I had left it there when I went out. Could they have had anything to do with the eccentricities of those ridiculous men? My common-sense—I have common-sense, and plenty of it; it is my strongest point—told me that the mere notion was nonsense. In some way or other I had been the victim of my own imagination, though until then I was not aware that I had any to be the victim of. I am not an imaginative being. I declare I am not. Quite the other way. Still it stood to reason that I could not have seen those words coming on the paper in the way I had supposed. They must have been there before. And I had been a silly. I caught up the half-sheet, meaning to tear it into pieces for having made me make such a goose of myself.
But I could not. Something seemed to take me by the wrists and prevent me. I let the paper drop from between my fingers in a flutter of amazement. I looked at the glass in front of me. Could this be myself that I was looking at? Then I certainly was not so ill-looking as I had supposed. I might be big, but I was striking. My cheeks were aglow with health. My lips parted in a radiant smile, for which I could have kissed myself. The whitest of white teeth shone through them. My eyes laughed back at me in a fashion which set all my pulses beating. Ill-looking, with eyes like those? What rubbish people would talk! They were alive with all sorts of things, two of the daintiest, most mischievous, frankest, tenderest, dancing lures which were ever set in a woman’s head. Why, the freckles on my nose positively set them off.
Really, as I observed the reflection in that mirror I was not at all surprised at the conduct of those men. There was some excuse for them, after all. No woman might see it, but I was sure that other men would quickly. One woman is slow to see what it is in another woman which attracts a man. But I knew then. No man, and no boy either who was even in the neighbourhood of manhood, could meet those eyes without—well, without feeling some sort of a sensation. I was perfectly sure that he could not.
I put my hands up to my face, and laughed!—and actually blushed! It was so very odd. And so amusing! I felt—it is difficult to describe exactly—but I was twittering from head to foot, as with a consciousness of suddenly acquired powers which made me—I do not know precisely what word to use, but I will write it irresponsible. I was more than half-ashamed. I doubted if it was a proper feeling for a girl to have. At twenty-three one ought to be discreet.
Suddenly the door opened and Doris put her head in. She was in her petticoat, and her hair all down.
“Norah! Whatever are you figuring about before the glass for like that? Mr Purchase and Mr Carter are coming down the street; go to the drawing-room at once. Audrey and I will race down as fast as ever we can, but you must go this moment.”
She just said that, and was off again. It was as well she was, the idea of her catching me like that made me go a peony-red all over. I am not in the habit of “figuring about” before a looking-glass, and nobody can say I am.
So Mr Purchase and Mr Carter were coming down the street? I felt, well, I am afraid that I felt delighted. If Doris had only known I doubt if she would have been so anxious that I should hurry down. They were two of the very nicest boys we know, and had behaved quite decently even to me. They were sometimes apt to treat me in a free and easy, brotherly sort of fashion which I rather liked. So far as I could see there was no nonsense about them whatever. They were inseparable chums, kind of David and Jonathan, and always hunted in couples.
Jack Purchase was supposed to be a barrister, but so far as I could see the only thing he really did was to make ardent love to Doris. He was tolerably well off, but Doris was a desperate flirt and led him a tremendous dance. I believe that in her heart she more than liked him, but it seemed as if she was incapable of owning as much to any man. So many men had been over head and ears in love with her that I suppose she had come to think that it would be undignified to admit any feeling of the kind for one of them. Mamma was very anxious to get her off, and would have liked nothing better than to have had Mr Purchase as a son-in-law. But Doris did not care a snap of the fingers for what mamma said, and her partisanship rather damaged him in her eyes, if anything. She was a contrary little wretch.