Greatheart Part 6

He surveyed her more critically. "It's not a bad get-up. You look very nice anyhow. If you like to bring me the handkerchief, I will see what I can do. I know a little about it from the point of view of an amateur artist. You want some earrings. Have you got any?"

Dinah shook her head. "Of course not."

"I believe my sister has," said Scott. "I'll go and see."

"Oh no, no! What will she think?" cried Dinah in distress.

He uttered his quiet laugh. "I will present you to her by-and-bye if I may. I am sure she will be interested and pleased. You finish off as quickly as you can! I shall be back directly."

He limped away again down the pa.s.sage, moving more quickly than was his wont, and Dinah hastened back into her room wondering if this informality would be regarded by her chaperon as a great breach of etiquette.

"Rose thinks I'm vulgar," she murmured to herself. "I wonder if I really am. But really--he is such a dear little man. How could I possibly help it?"

The dear little man's return put an end to her speculations. He came back in an incredibly short time, armed with a leather jewel-case which he deposited on the threshold.

Dinah came light-footed to join him, all her grievances forgotten. Her hair, notwithstanding its waywardness, cl.u.s.tered very prettily about her face. There was a bewitching dimple near one corner of her mouth.

"You can come in if you like," she said. "I'm quite dressed--all except the handkerchief."

"Thank you; but I won't come in," he answered. "We mustn't shock anybody.

If you could bring a chair out, I could manage quite well."

She fetched the chair. "If anyone comes down the pa.s.sage, they'll wonder what on earth we are doing," she remarked.

"They will take us for old friends," said Scott in a matter of-fact tone as he opened the jewel-case.

She laughed delightedly. There was a peculiarly happy quality about her laugh. Most people smiled quite involuntarily when they heard it, though Billy compared it to the neigh of a cheery colt.

"Now," said Scott, looking at her quizzically, "are you going to sit in the chair, or am I going to stand on it?"

"Oh, I'll sit," she said. "Here's the handkerchief! You will fasten it so that it doesn't flop, won't you? May I hold that case? I won't touch anything."

He put it open into her lap. "There is a chain of coral there. Perhaps you can find it. I think it would look well with your costume."

Dinah pored over the jewels with sparkling eyes. "But are you sure--quite sure--your sister doesn't mind?"

"Quite sure," said Scott, beginning to drape the handkerchief adroitly over her bent head.

"How very sweet of her--of you both!" said Dinah. "I feel like Cinderella being dressed for the ball. Oh, what lovely pearls! I never saw anything so exquisite."

She had opened an inner case and was literally revelling in its contents.

"They were--her husband's wedding present to her," said Scott in his rather monotonous voice.

"How lovely it must be to be married!" said Dinah, with a little sigh.

"Do you think so?" said Scott.

She turned in her chair to regard him. "Don't you?"

"I can't quite imagine it," he said.

"Oh, can't I!" said Dinah. "To have someone in love with you, wanting no one but you, thinking there's no one else in the world like you. Have you never dreamt that such a thing has happened? I have. And then waked up to find everything very flat and uninteresting."

Scott was intent upon fastening an old gold brooch in the red kerchief above her forehead. He did not meet the questioning of her bright eyes.

"No," he said. "I don't think I ever cajoled myself, either waking or sleeping, into imagining that anybody would ever fall in love with me to that extent."

Dinah laughed, her upturned face a-brim with merriment. "If any woman ever wants to marry you, she'll have to do her own proposing, won't she?"

she said.

"I think she will," said Scott.

"I wish Rose de Vigne would fall in love with you then," declared Dinah.

"Men are always proposing to her, she leads them on till they make perfect idiots of themselves. I think it's simply horrid of her to do it.

But she says she can't help being beautiful. Oh, how I wish--" Dinah broke off.

"What do you wish?" said Scott.

She turned her face away to hide a blush. "You must think me very silly and childish. So I am, but I'm not generally so. I think it's in the air here. I was going to say, how I wished I could outshine her for just one night! Isn't that piggy of me? But I am so tired of being always in the shade. She called me 'Poor little Dinah!' only to-night. How would you like to be called that?"

"Most people call me Stumpy," observed Scott, with his whimsical little smile.

"How rude of them! How horrid of them!" said Dinah. "And do you actually put up with it?"

He bent with her over the jewel-case, and picked out the coral chain. "I don't care the toss of a halfpenny," he said.

She gave him a quick, searching glance. "Not really? Not in your secret heart?"

"Not in the deepest depth of my unfathomable soul," he declared.

"Then you're a great man," said Dinah, with conviction.

Scott's laugh was one of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt. "Oh, does that follow? I've never seen myself in that light before."

But Dinah was absolutely serious and remained so. There was even a touch of reverence in her look. "You evidently don't know yourself in the least," she said. "Anyhow, you've made me feel a downright toad."

"I don't know why," said Scott. "You don't look like one if that's any comfort." He stooped to fasten the necklace. "Now for the earrings, and you are complete."

"It is good of you," she said gratefully. "I am longing to go and look at myself. But can you fasten them first? I'm sure I can't."

He complied with his almost feminine dexterity, and in a few moments a sparkling and glorified Dinah rose and skipped into her room to see the general effect of her transformation.

Scott lingered to close the jewel-case. Frankly, he had enjoyed himself during the last ten minutes. Moreover he was sure she would be pleased with the result of his labours. But he was hardly prepared for the cry of delight that reached him as he turned to depart.

He paused as he heard it, and in a moment Dinah flashed out again like a radiant b.u.t.terfly and gave him both her hands.

"You--magician!" she cried. "How did you do it? How can I thank you? I've never been so nearly pretty in my life!"