With which oracular remark she adjourned to her dressing-room, where, in long rows, her lovely gowns were hung.
Leila, left alone, picked up a magazine on the table beside her glanced through it and laid it down; picked a bonbon daintily out of a big box and ate it; picked up a photograph——
"Mousie," said Lilah, coming back, several minutes later, "what makes you so still? Did you find a book?"
No, Leila had not found a book, and the photograph was back where she had first discovered it, face downward under the box of chocolates. And she was now standing by the window, her veil drawn tightly over her close little hat, so that one might not read the trouble in her telltale eyes. The daisy drooped now, as if withered by the blazing sun.
But Delilah saw nothing of the change. She wore a saffron-hued coat, which matched the roses in the other room, and her leopard skins, with a small hat of the same fur.
As she surveyed herself finally in the long glass, she flung out the somewhat caustic remark:
"When I get down-stairs and look at Mary Ballard, I shall feel like a Beardsley poster propped up beside a Helleu etching."
After lunch, Porter took Aunt Isabelle and Barry and the three girls to Fort Myer. The General and Mr. Jeliffe met them at the drill hall, and as they entered there came to them the fresh fragrance of the tan bark.
As the others filed into their seats, Barry held Leila back. "We will sit at the end," he said. "I want to talk to you."
Through her veil, her eyes reproached him.