"Oh, a sweet boy. Handsome eyes. (I always want to pick them out with a fork and put them into my own head.) But too simple for me, thanks,"
said Leslie lightly. "He was _rather_ cut up when I told him so."
"Didn"t you tell your old lady--anything about it, Leslie?"
"Does that kind of woman _ever_ get told the truth, Gwenna? I trow not.
That"s why the dear old legends live on and on about what men like and who they propose to. Also the kind old rules, drawn up by people who are past taking a hand in the game."
Again she mimicked the old lady"s voice: "Nice men have one standard for the women they marry, and another (a very different standard!) for the--er--women they flirt with. (So satisfactory, don"t you know, for the girl they marry. No _wonder_ we never find those marriages being a complete washout!) But supposing that a sort of Leslie-girl came along and insisted upon Marriage being brought up to the flirtation standard--_hein_?"
"But your old lady, Leslie? D"you mean you just let her go on thinking that you"ve never had any admiration, and that you"ve got to agree with everything she says?"
"Rather!" said Miss Long with her enjoying laugh. "I take it in with r-r-rapt attention, looking my worst, as I always do when I"m behaving my best. Partly because one"s bound to listen respectfully to one"s bread-and-b.u.t.ter speaking. And partly because I am genuinely interested in her remarks," said Leslie Long. "It"s the interest of a rather smart young soldier--if I may say so--let loose in a museum of obsolete small-arms!"
Even as she spoke her hands were busy with puff and brush, with hair-pad, pins, and pencil. Gwenna still regarded her with that full, discriminating admiration which is never grudged by one attractive girl to another--of an opposite type.
With the admiration for this was mixed a tiny dread, well known to the untried girl--"If she is what They like, _they won"t like me_!" ... Also a wonder, "What in the world would Uncle have said to _her_?"
And a mental picture rose before Gwenna of the guardian she had left in the valley. She saw his shock of white, bog-cotton hair, his face of a Jesuit priest and his voice of a Welsh dissenting minister. She heard that much-resented voice declaiming slowly. "Yes, Yes. I know the meaning of London and _self-respect and earning one"s own living_. I know all about these College girls and these girls going to business and working same as the men, "shoulder to shoulder"--Indeed, it"s very likely! _"Something better to do, nowadays, than sit at home frowsting over drawn-thread work until a husband chooses to appear"_--All the same thing! All the same thing! As it was in the beginning! _"A wider field"_--for making eyes! And only two eyes to make them with. Oh, forget-ful Providence, not to let a modern girl have four! _"Larger opportunities"_--more chance of finding a young man! Yes, yes. That"s it, Gwenna!"
Gwenna, at the mere memory of it, broke out indignantly, "Sometimes I should like to _stab_ old people!"
"Meaning the celebrated Uncle Hugh? Too wise, isn"t he?" laughed Leslie lightly, with her hands at her hair. "Too full of home-truths about the business girl"s typewriter, and the art-student"s palette and the shilling thermometer of the hospital nurse, eh? _He_ knows that they"re the modern girl"s equivalent of the silken rope-ladder--what, what? And the chaise to Gretna Green! _This Way Out. This Way--to Romance._ Why not? Allow me, Madam----"
Here she took up an oval box of eighteenth-century enamel, picked out a tiny black velvet patch and placed it to the left of a careless red mouth.
"Effective, I think?"
"Yes; and how can you say there"s such a thing as "obsolete" in the middle of all this?" protested Gwenna. "_Look_, how the old fashions come up again!"
"Child, curb your dialect. "_Look_,"" Leslie mimicked the Welsh girl"s rising accent. ""The old fashshons." Of course we modify the fashions now to suit ourselves. My old lady had to follow them just as they were.
We," said this twentieth-century sage, "are just the same as she was in lots of ways. The all-important thing to us is still what she calls the Mate!"
"M"m,--I don"t believe it would be to me," said Gwenna simply. And thinking of the other possibilities of Life--fresh experiences, work, friendship, adventure (flying, say!)--she meant what she said. That was the truth.
Side by side with this, not contradicting but emphasising it, was another truth.
For, as in a house one may arrange roses in a drawing-room and reck nothing of the homely business of the kitchen--then presently descend and forget, in the smell of baking bread, the flowers behind those other doors, so divided, so uncommunicating, so pigeon-holed are the compartments, lived in one at a time, of a young maid"s mind.
Clearer to Gwenna"s inner eyes than the larch green and slate purple of her familiar valley had been the colours of a secret picture; herself in a pink summer frock (always a summer frock, regardless of time, season or place) being proposed to by a blonde youth with eyes as blue as lupins....
Mocking Leslie was urging her, again in the old lady"s tone, to "wait until Mr. Right came along. Jewelled phrase! Such an old world fragrance about it; moth powder, I suppose. Yet we know what it means, and they didn"t. We know it isn"t just anybody in trousers that would _be_ Mr. Right. (My dear! I use such strange expressions; I quite shock me sometimes)," she interpolated; adding, "It"s a mercy for us in some ways; so good if we do get the right man. Worse than it used to be if we don"t. Swings and roundabouts again. But it"s still true that
Two things greater than all things are, The first is Love and the second is War."
"I can"t imagine such a thing as war, now," mused Gwenna on the bed.
"Can you?"
"Oh, vaguely; yes," said Leslie Long. "You know my people, poor darlings, were all in the Army. But the poisonously rich man my sister married says there"ll never be any war again, except perhaps among a few dying-out savage races. He does so grudge every ha"penny to the Navy Estimates; and he"s quite violent about these useless standing armies!
You know he"s no sahib. "_His tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes._" However, never mind him. _I"m_ the central figure.
Which is to be my frock of fascination to-night? "_The White Hope?_" or "_The Yellow Peril?_" You"re wearing your white, Taffy. Righto, then I"ll put on _this_," decided the elder girl.
She stepped into and drew up about her a moulding sheath of amber-coloured satin that clung to her limbs as a wave clings to a bather--such was the fleeting fashion now defunct! There was a corolla of escholtzia-yellow about the strait hips, a heavy golden girdle dangling.
"There! Now! How"s the Bakst view?" demanded Leslie.
She turned slowly, rising on her toes, lifting the glossy black head above a generous display of creamy shoulder-blades; posing, laughing while Gwenna caught her breath.
"Les-lie!... And where _did_ you get it?"
"Cast-off from an opulent cousin. What I should do if I didn"t get a few clothes given me I don"t know; I should be sent back by the policeman at the corner, I suppose. One can"t _live_ at fancy dances at the Albert Hall," said Miss Long philosophically. "Don"t I look like a Rilette advertis.e.m.e.nt on the end page of _Punch_? Don"t I vary? Would anybody think I was the same wispy rag-bag you met in the hall? Nay. "From Slattern to Show-girl," that"s my gamut. But you, Taff, I"ve never seen you look really plain. It"s partly your curls. You"ve got the sort of hair some boys have and all women envy. Come here, now, and let"s arrange you. I"ve already been attending to your frock."
The frock which Gwenna was to wear that evening at the dinner-party was one which she had bought, without advice, out of an Oxford Street shop window during a summer sale. It was of satin of which the dead-white gleam was softened by a misty over-dress. So far, so good; but what of the heavy, expensive-looking garniture--sash, knots, and what-nots of lurid colour--with which the French artist"s conception had been "brightened up" in this English version?
"Ripped off," explained Leslie Long, firmly, as its owner gazed in horror at a mutilated gown. "No cerise--it"s a "married" colour--No mural decorations for you, Taffy, my child. "_Oh, what a power has white simplicity._" White, pure white, with these little transparent ruffles that kind Leslie has sewn into the sleeves and round the fichu arrangement for you; and a sash of _very_ pale sky-blue."
"Shan"t I look like a baby?"
"Yes; the sweetest portrait of one, by Sir Joshua Reynolds."
"Oh! And I"d bought a cerise and _diamante_ hair-ornament."
"Quite imposs. A hair-ornament? One of the housemaids will love it for her next tango tea in Camden Town. As for you, don"t dare to touch your curls again--no, nor to put anything round your neck! Take away that bauble!"
"Aren"t I even to wear my gold Liberty beads?"
"No! you aren"t. Partly because I am, in my hair. Besides, what d"you want them for, with a throat like that? Necklaces are such a mistake,"
decreed Leslie. "If a girl"s got a nice neck, it hides the line; if she hasn"t, it shows the defect up!"
"Well," protested Gwenna doubtfully, "but mightn"t you say that of anything to wear?"
"Precisely. Still, you can"t live up to every counsel of perfection. Not in this climate!"
"You might let me have my thin silver chain, whatever, and my little heart that my Auntie Margie gave me--in fact, I"m going to. It"s a mascot," said Gwenna, as she hung the little mother-o"-pearl pendant obstinately about her neck. "There!"
"Very well. Spoil the look of that lovely little dimply hollow you"ve got just at the base there if you must. A man," said Gwenna"s chum with a quick, critical glance, "a man would find that very easy to kiss."
"Easy!" said Gwenna, with a quicker blush of anger. "He wouldn"t then, indeed!"
"Oh, my dear, I didn"t mean that," explained Leslie as she caught up her gloves and wrap and prepared to lead the way out of the room and downstairs to the hall. They would walk as far as the Tube, then book to South Kensington. "All I meant was, that a man would--- that is, _might_--er--possibly get the better--ah--of his--say, his natural repugnance to _trying_----"
A little wistfully, Gwenna volunteered: "One never has."
"I know, Taffy. Not yet," said Leslie Long. "But one will. "_Cheer up, girls, he is getting on his boots!_" Ready? Come along."
CHAPTER III