Mrs. Devine sat
with her plump white hands folded on her lap, whether asleep or not it
was impossible to say. The lady who was cousin to a baronet had
shifted her chair beneath the gasolier, her eyes bent on her
everlasting crochet work. The languid Miss Devine had crossed to the
piano, where she sat fingering softly the tuneless keys, her back to
the cold barely-furnished room.
"Sit down!" commanded saucily Miss Kite, indicating with her fan the
vacant seat beside her. "Tell me about yourself. You interest me."
Miss Kite adopted a pretty authoritative air towards all
youthful-looking members of the opposite sex. It harmonised with the
peach complexion and the golden hair, and fitted her about as well.
"I am glad of that," answered the stranger, taking the chair
suggested. "I so wish to interest you."
"You're a very bold boy." Miss Kite lowered her fan, for the purpose
of glancing archly over the edge of it, and for the first time
encountered the eyes of the stranger looking into hers. And then it
was that Miss Kite experienced precisely the same curious sensation
that an hour or so ago had troubled Mrs. Pennycherry when the stranger
had first bowed to her. It seemed to Miss Kite that she was no longer
the Miss Kite that, had she risen and looked into it, the fly-blown
mirror over the marble mantelpiece would, she knew, have presented to
her view; but quite another Miss Kite--a cheerful, bright-eyed lady
verging on middle age, yet still good-looking in spite of her faded
complexion and somewhat thin brown locks.
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