'She looks uncommonly well in evening dress,' thought Earle; 'not much of the coat-and-waistcoat style there! What finely formed arms and shoulders. I should like to paint her.'
Ponderous, stiff-looking Mr De Lacy bore down upon him and whispered mysteriously: 'You are to take Miss Stirling in to dinner. Come and be introduced.'
'But isn't she rather formidable?' remonstrated the artist.
'Formidable! Dear no; one of the pleasantest girls I know.'
In another minute Earle found himself part of the procession filing down to dinner, with a shapely hand upon his arm. After his remark of last night he felt unaccountably ill at ease, and was racking his brain for something to say; for 'I daren't talk weather to a strong-minded woman,' he thought; but when they were seated at table she relieved him by saying in her straightforward way: 'Are you Mr Earle the artist? Mrs De Lacy runs on so fast one does not carry away clear ideas from her.'
'Yes, I am. You did not hear then that I am pledged to paint her portrait?'
As he spoke he made so rueful a face that Miss Stirling laughed outright, but checked herself, saying with compunction: 'It is not nice of me to laugh at my hostess! And she really has been very kind to me.'
'O yes, she is good-natured enough! Still--in this instance allow me to say--the obligation is more on her side than yours.'
'Have you not found out then, yet, that our friend has a weakness for collecting celebrities at her house?'
'But then I am not one; so that does not apply. I suppose,' she added, looking up at him with an arch expression, he was quite ashamed of finding most winning, 'that accounts for _you_ being here!'
'Do you really mean you do not consider yourself a celebrity?' he asked rather sarcastically.
'I don't say what I don't mean,' she answered coldly. 'You think, I suppose, whenever a woman "speaks in public" it is to shew herself off?'
'So you bear me a grudge for the unlucky speech you heard last night?'
Miss Stirling coloured. 'It is small of me to be vexed, I know,' she said, after a moment's pause, in her frank direct way; 'but we get a good many snubs, you must know, and we--or I, rather--are stupid enough to feel somewhat sensitive.'
'Well, please to forgive me. I spoke principally out of contradiction to Mrs De Lacy.'