Part 21 (1/2)
”I knew he would come,” she said, abstractedly. Then Dame Prudence addressed her.
”Did you?” she remarked. ”How did you?”
She started and blushed up to her ears.
”How?” she repeated. ”Oh, I knew!”
”Perhaps he told you he would,” put in Dame P. ”Did he?”
”Aimee,” was the rather irrelevant reply, rather suddenly made, ”do you like him?”
”I never judge people,” primly enunciated, ”upon first acquaintance.
First impressions are rarely to be relied upon.”
”That 's a nice speech,” in her elder sister's most shockingly flippant manner, ”and it sounds well, but I have heard it before--thousands of times. People always say it when they want to be specially disagreeable, and would like to cool you down. There is the least grain of Lady Augusta in you, Aimee.”
”And considering that Lady Augusta is the most unpleasant person we know, _that_ is a nice speech,” returned the oracle.
”Oh, well, I only said 'a grain,' and a grain is not much.”
”It is quite enough.”
”Well,” amiably, ”suppose we say half a grain.”
”Suppose we say you are talking nonsense.”
Mollie's air was Dolly's own as she answered her,--people always said she was like Dolly, despite the fact that Dolly was not a beauty at all.
”There may be something in that,” she said.
”Suppose we admit it and return to the subject Do you think he is nice, Aimee?”
”Do you?”
”Yes, I do,” but without getting rose-colored this time.
Aimee looked at her calmly, but with some quiet scrutiny in her glance.
”As nice,” she put it to her,--”as nice as Ralph Gowan?”
She grew rose-colored then in an instant up to her ears again and over them, and she turned her face aside and plucked at the hearth-rug with nervous fingers.
”Well?” suggested Aimee.
”He is as handsome and--as tall, and he dresses as well.”
”Do you like him as well?” said Aimee.
”Ye-es--no. I have not known him long enough to tell you.”