"I could never guess," the girl answered, with a secret pang of the keenest jealousy.
"He said: 'What exquisite pansies! They remind me of Miss Lester's eyes--such a rare, purplish blue, with dark shadings."
Liane caught her breath with stifled rapture, that he had remembered her, but Dolly added wistfully:
"He must have read in my face that I was disappointed at not having a compliment, too, for he went on to say that my eyes were just like bluebells. Liane, which are the prettier flowers, pansies or bluebells?"
"I should say that it is all a matter of taste," Liane replied gently.
So presently they went upstairs to bed, but Dolly was so excited she talked half the night.
"Liane, have you heard of the Beauty Show that is to be held in the town hall next week?" she asked, as she rolled her yellow locks in kid curlers to make them fluffy.
"No? Why, that is strange. Every one is talking about it, and they say that you and I are pretty enough to compete for the prize, although Miss Roma Clarke intends to exhibit her handsomest portrait."
"It is this way, Liane: A Boston artist has a commission to design the outside cover of a magazine for December, and he wants to get a lovely young girl for the central figure--a young girl taken from life. So he has advertised for five hundred pictures of beauties, to be delivered by next week, when they will be exhibited on the walls of the town hall, and judges appointed to decide on the fairest. Of course, the artist himself is to be one of the judges, and they say that Mr. Clarke and Mr. Devereaux will be two of the others, but I don't know the rest. Don't you think it's unfair, Liane, to have Roma Clarke's father and lover for judges? Of course, they will show her some partiality in their votes."
Liane murmured with dry lips in a choking voice:
"So they say, but I hope it's not true. I'm trying to catch him myself," confessed Dolly quite frankly. "I don't really think it's fair for Miss Clarke to compete for the prize, anyway. She ought to leave the chance to some beautiful, poor girl that needs that hundred dollars so much worse than she does!"
"Yes; just think of it! You must try for the prize, Liane."
"I don't know; I must think over it first. Wouldn't it seem conceited in me? As if I were sure that I was a raging beauty?" doubtfully.