"A picture!" I laughed. "All right, here goes: Eighteen, 'a daughter of
the gods, divinely tall and most divinely fair'--that sort of thing.
Features classic--perfect oval, you know, and profile to set an artist
mad with joy. Eyes? Blue as Hebe's, but big and true and tender; hair, a
great, shining nugget of virgin gold. Form divine--the ideal of a poet's
dream--the alluring, the elusive, the unattainable, the despair of the
sculptor's chisel."
"My!" said Miss Billings, staring.
But I was not through. "Complexion? Her skin as smooth as the heart of a
seashell and as delicately warm as its rosy blush when kissed by the
amorous tide."
"Gee!" ejaculated my darling.
I looked at her closely. "And in one matchless cheek a dimple divine
such as might have been left by the barbed arrow of Cupid when it awoke
Psyche from her swoon of death. In short, she might be the dainty fairy
princess of our childhood fantasies, were she less superb in figure. On
the other hand, she might be the sunny-haired daughter of a Viking king,
were she not too delicately featured and molded."
That was all I could remember from the description as I had read it in a
novel, but I was glad I had stored it up, by Jove, for it suited her to
a dot. She didn't say a word for a moment, but just sat there eying me
kind of sidewise, her little upper lip lifted in an odd way. Then of a
sudden she shook her head and swung her knees up over the arm of her
chair.
"Well, Dicky, as a describer you sure are the slushy spreader. Say,
you've got Eleanor Glyn backed off the boards."
She went on eagerly: "I don't care, though; slushy or not, your
picture's just perfect for _her_. Why, your girl must be a ringer for
the girl at Radcliffe. Only thing you left out was the freckle on the
chin."
Freckle on the chin! By Jove, I left it out on purpose, for I thought
she might not like it. I wondered if all girls at Radcliffe had freckles
on the chin.
She lay back, regarding me inscrutably. "If she looks like that," she
sighed, "you ought to love her very much, Dicky."
I couldn't say anything, for words are so deuced inadequate, you know.
But I just made an effort to look it all.
"Of course," sighing, "you ought to feel that way; and, another thing,
Dicky: you'll never forget where you first saw her, will you? One of the
things one never forgets."
"Right in this room," I murmured; "and in that wicker chair."
"Really?" Her surprised ejaculation was delicious. By Jove, how
entrancingly coquettish of her! How jolly clever!
"Go on; tell me how she was dressed--never mind any more picture
business; just tell me in four or five words. Bet you can't do it!" She
slipped over again to the arm of my chair.
In her eyes was a challenge and I took it up.
"In black silk pajamas," I said daringly.
Her blue eyes opened wide. For a moment I feared she would be offended
at my audacity, but her birdlike carol of laughter reassured me.
"Say, _you're_ not so slow, _are_ you?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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