Part 31 (1/2)
”Of course,” he a.s.sured her. ”You know how to wear clothes. And you know you look particularly well in white. I've told you so before.”
”Once.”
”Half a dozen times.”
”No--once. I remember it very well, because you don't often notice what I have on. Perhaps that's lucky, too.”
”If it's you in the clothes, that's good enough.”
”That's just the trouble. You accept me as part of the everyday scenery. I might wear a blanket, for all you'd care.”
”I've seen some mighty becoming blanket costumes.”
”I'm not a _klootch_,” she flashed. ”I'm a white woman, and when I wear a becoming dress I like somebody to tell me so.”
”And didn't I just tell you?”
”So you did--and I'll put a ring around the date. It's the first time you've condescended to pay me a compliment in a year. You men are the limit. You take it as a matter of course that a girl should be neat and spick and span. If she wasn't you'd notice it soon enough. It's easy for a girl like this Miss Burnaby. I don't suppose she ever did a day's work or anything useful in her life. She orders her clothes from the best places, and gets them fitted and sent home, and that's all there is to it. But how about me? I've got a hundred things to attend to every day. I've got to make my own clothes, or take a long chance on a mail-order house. That's why, when I do get anything that looks pa.s.sable, I like it to be noticed.”
”That's so,” he admitted. ”That's natural. I never thought of it, Sheila, and that's the truth. Why didn't you tell me before?”
”Oh, heavens! Casey, I'm sorry I did now. Why do men have to be _told_?
I don't get taken this way often. Women and dogs have to be thankful for small mercies. Only a dog can shove a cold, wet nose into his master's hand and get a pat and a kind word; but a woman----”
She broke off, colouring furiously. The red tide surged over cheeks and brow to the roots of her hair. For the first time, with him, she was afraid of being misunderstood.
But Casey's perceptions, fairly acute where men and affairs were concerned, quite failed to grasp the situation. He saw only that Sheila, ordinarily sensible and dependable, had flown off the handle over something, and he metaphorically threw up his hands helplessly at the vagaries of women.
”Well, well, now, never mind,” he said, in blundering consolation. ”You look well in anything. I've often noticed, but I didn't think you cared for compliments. Anyway”--he grasped eagerly at something safe--”anyway, you can't beat that white dress.”
She turned to him again, once more the everyday Sheila.
”All right, old boy, we'll let it go at that. Forget it. And now I'll tell you something: I wore this white dress--absolutely the plainest thing I have--because I didn't want to come into a finery contest with Miss Burnaby. And now let's look at the old dog. I'm afraid he'll have to be shot.”
Farwell put in an appearance after supper. It was plain that the big engineer had not expected to find other guests; also that their presence embarra.s.sed him. Quite unused to dissembling his feelings, he took no pains to hide his dislike for Dunne. Casey, on the other hand, was polite, suave, quiet, wearing the mocking smile that invariably exasperated the engineer.
”You and Mr. Farwell are not friends,” Clyde ventured on the way home.
”He doesn't think much of me,” Casey admitted. ”I rub him the wrong way.”
”As you were doing to-night.”
”Was I?”
”You know you were. Is there a private quarrel between you, apart from the water matter?”
”Not exactly. But it would come to that if we saw much of each other.”