“What? In this crowd? Never! Besides, he isn’t likely to be outside,” said Pauline.
She was only a few minutes older than Rosie, but she could not have played the elder sister more completely had she been ten years older.
“We might meet _her_, anyway!” murmured Rosie.
“Nonsense, Rosie. You don’t imagine she’ll be here, do you?”
“I don’t know,” said Rosie, lifting her chin. “But suppose we do meet him, or either of them.”
“Well, then,” said Pauline wisely, “we meet them, that’s all.”
“Shall you speak to them?” Rosie asked; “I shan’t.”
“We’ll think about that when we see them,” said Pauline.
This exclamation had nothing to do with the foregoing chatter. It merely expressed some part of Rosie’s joy when the car came to the magnificent circular place half-way down the Central Way, with the façade of the Exposition Palace on the right, the stately entrance to the Oriental Gardens on the left, and the superb vista of the thoroughfare before and behind.
“Oh!” cried Rosie again, for quite a different reason.
Already she had forgotten the architectural and other beauties of this scene, and was eagerly directing Pauline’s attention to a tall man with vivid hair and an individual style, who had just crossed the rails in front of the car and was proceeding towards the Oriental Gardens.
“There!” said Rosie, pointing frantically, yet primly. “Don’t you see him?”
“So it is, I do declare!” agreed Pauline, frankly as interested as her sister.
“Oh!” breathed Rosie regretfully, as the car swept them further from the figure of the popular hero. “Doesn’t he look lovely? He’s just like his portraits, only nicer, isn’t he?”
“I--I couldn’t see him very well,” said the discreet Pauline.
“Yes, you could,” Rosie corrected her sharply. “You know you adore him. But you’re always so mum.”
“I do wish we could meet him--be introduced to him I mean!” said Rosie.
“My dear child,” Pauline reprimanded. “Don’t be silly. He’s frightfully rich.”
“I know!” said Rosie sadly. “But he isn’t married. I think his hair’s beautiful.”
In common with very many English and other girls, Rosie and Pauline were capable of displaying brazenly, for a man they had scarcely seen, an affection the tenth part of which certain males with whom they were intimately acquainted would have been delighted to receive. Their virgin hearts had never been touched, not even by the Apollos of the house of Shooter; they prided themselves on their unapproachableness; yet they could rave about Carpentaria, and openly profess that they were his slaves. In Carpentaria’s presence they would doubtless have behaved, even if they did not feel, differently.