"Wonderful!" said Gerard, patting the vision's rounded bare arm as he
hurried past--"fine gown! fine girl!--but I've got to dress and so has
Philip--" He meant well.
"_Do_ you like it, Captain Selwyn?" asked the girl, turning to confront
him, where he had halted. "Gerald isn't coming and--I thought perhaps
you'd be interested--"
The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip remained
there, unsaid. He stood silent, touched by the faint under-ringing
wistfulness in the laughing voice that challenged his opinion; and
something within him responded in time:
"Your gown is a beauty; such wonderful lace. Of course, anybody would
know it came straight from Paris or from some other celestial region--"
"But it didn't!" cried the girl, delighted. "It looks it, doesn't it?
But it was made by Letellier! Is there anything you don't like about it,
Captain Selwyn? _Anything_?"
"Nothing," he said solemnly; "it is as adorable as the girl inside it,
who makes it look like a Parisian importation from Paradise!"
She colored enchantingly, and with pretty, frank impulse held out both
her hands to him:
"You _are_ a dear, Captain Selwyn! It is my first real dinner gown and
I'm quite mad about it; and--somehow I wanted the family to share my
madness with me.
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