CHAPTER XX
“YES,” said Tiny to Lee that night, “you are lovely—perfectlylovely: but it should have been white. I think it wasquiteweak of us to give way. No girlevermade her début in black before.”
“That’s why I wanted to—that, and because it’s so becoming. Why should I wear a silly little white frock just because it’s the custom?”
“The more you make yourself like other people, dear, the easier time you will have in this world.”
Lee tossed her head. “I’m going to have my own wayinmy own way,” she announced.
She was dressed for her party, in black gauze. Mrs. Montgomery had wept at the bare suggestion. Tiny had expressed herself with unusual emphasis, and Coralie, who expected to be a vision in white, had remonstrated until Lee had fallen asleep.
Lee had an instinct for dress. She knew that she would look superb in black, and merely sweet and pretty in white. She had chosen a gauze as blue-black as her hair, and ordered it to be made with a light simplicity which increased her clean length of limb and threw into sharp relief the dazzling white of her skin. She wore her hair brushed away from her face and knotted at the back of her head.
“I may not be a great beauty,” she remarked, “but Iamstunning!”
“You are a symphony in black and blue; and white and pink; your eyes are soveryblue in that dress, and your hair, and brows, and lashes seem so much blacker than usual—one almost forgets even your complexion. You aredespairinglypretty.”
Tiny looked placidly pretty in pink and white.
“Ah! Well, I intend to be thought so, whether I am or not. If I see anybody looking at me as if they were criticising my nose and mouth I’ll just blaze my eyes at them and walk across the room.”
Tiny laughed. “The beauty carriage is half the battle. I’ve seen rather plain girls carry themselves as if they were satiated with admiration, and get far more than some modest beauty.”
“Youbetcherlife—I beg pardon, Tiny; I’ll never use a word of slang again—I vow I won’t. Is it true that Englishwomen use a lot of slang?”
“Smart Englishwomen have an absurd fiction that they are above all laws, and some of them are as vulgar as underbred Americans—I cannot say more than that. But like other properly bred Americans—Southerners, I mean, of course—I have my own standards.”
“But if you do not adopt their argot you may not get on over there,” said Lee, with a flash of insight.
“I should like nothing better than to be unpopular with people whose manners I did not like, and whose race for amusement bored me. They can think me just as provincial and old-fashioned as they like. There are always charming people in every society.The thing is to have the entrée, and then pick and choose.”
“I shan’t care at all about society when I’m married. Cecil and I will be frightfully in love, and live in an old castle, and stay out all day on the moors and in the woods, and climb fells and things.”
“So you fancy yourself in love with Cecil,” remarked Miss Montgomery. “You’ve been dreaming about him all these years.”
Lee turned as pink as one of the Castilian roses under her window. She had been imprudent more than once to-day and betrayed her precious secret.
“Well—itisrather romantic. I—well, you’d think about him in that way, too—you know you would.”
“Not if I had been obliged to read his letters. But if you really love him and intend to marry him, I think you should announce the engagement.”
“Well, I’m not going to announce it, and spoil all my fun. An engaged girl has a simply dismal time.”
“But it’s not fair to other men. I do hope, dearest, that you are not going to be an unprincipled flirt.”
“I don’t care a bit about flirting or having men fall in love with me. I only want to have a good time. If I see any man fixing to fall in love with me—I beg pardon—I mean showing signs of it, I’ll tell him, for I don’t want to hurt anybody, and I’m sure it must be horrid to see men look serious and glum. But I do want to be the belle of all theparties, and have flowers sent to me, and get nearly all the favours at the germans. Surely I have a right to a girl’s good time.”
“You certainly have, dear. Why not break the engagement? Have you considered that it is hardly fair to Cecil?”
“What?” Lee whirled about. “Do you thinkhewould wish it broken off? He’s never even hinted at such a thing.”
“Of course not; he’s too honourable. But when you are a year older you will write and tell him that you no longer hold him to a childish compact.”
“I won’t! He’s mine, and I’ll keep him. How can you be so cruel, Tiny? It’s my first party, and now I want to cry!”
“You did not let me finish. I had no intention of speaking of this to-night, and I would not spoil your pleasure for the world. I was only going to say that a year from now you will feel very differently about everything. You will have seen more of the world, and you will realise the difference between fact and fancy.”
“All the same I won’t give up Cecil,” said Lee obstinately. “It has been my dearest dream, and I won’t even think about it’s being all a sham.”