He flushed up like a girl; and she pointed to the gardenia in his button-hole.
'You don't go in for decoration except on state occasions,' she continued, 'and then you weren't at tennis. I always keep a look-out for you there; that back-handed return of yours from the line beats me. I've been trying it with the _chuprassie_ bowling at me, but it didn't come off somehow. You must teach me when we are in camp.'
'Of course I will,' replied Dan cheerfully. Lewis Gordon would have simpered and said, 'Delighted, I'm sure.' The remembrance vexed Rose by its very appearance; as if it mattered what Gwen Boynton's cousin said or did. And the vexation accounted for the phrasing of her next words.
'Mr. Keene sent me a message, didn't he? No! How stupid of him! It was about his _Nature_. I was to have it, and he was to let me know what he wanted me to do with it.'
Dan's face, which had showed perplexity, cleared. 'Ah, it's the magazine you're meaning. Sure you puzzled me entirely, for it is not nature you want, Miss Tweedie, though, 'tis true, one can't have too much of a good thing.'
It was a distinct compliment, or meant to be one, but Rose listened to it gaily, and five minutes after, despite her shoes, was whirling in and out of the shadows, full of the keen enjoyment which dancing brings to some people.
Lewis Gordon, lounging lazily in his dark corner, noticed her with a certain irritated surprise. It was a more inconsequent, therefore a more womanly action than he expected in a girl who annoyed him by refusing to take either of the two places he assigned to women folk in his Kosmos. There were those of whom wives and mothers could be made discreetly, safely; and those who would be utterly spoilt by the commonplace process. He turned to his cousin feeling no such difficulty in regard to her classification. Yet in the dim light nothing could be seen save the outline of a small head, a huge fur boa, and long curves ending in a bronzed slipper catching the light beyond the shadow in which they sat.
'Shall we not dance?' he asked. 'It is the best waltz of the three. Then I could bring you some coffee and we could rest--on our laurels.'
'No, thanks. I was engaged to Mr. Fitzgerald for the last, and I must give him time to cool down.' The voice was sweet, refined, careless.