“Shoulders not bad,” I remarked, walking round her, while she stood at a
laughing attention for kit inspection. “Waist--turn round--hm!--an inch
and a half at most; all right so long as you don’t lean forward.
Skirt--ah, the skirt--well, well, I’m past such things. Really, it’s not
bad for an improvisation.”
“I couldn’t find Carrie’s slippers,” she said, putting forward a small
foot.
The skirt had already revealed the silk-clad toes. I got her a
particularly large pair of my own, brought her the brandy, which she
drank like a sensible woman of twenty-eight, placed her an armchair near
the fire, and resumed my own seat. Then I sought her eyes.
“It was most thoughtful of you, Miss Dixon, to remember an invalid, and
to pay such a welcome call. I appreciate it. In the rain, too.”
Irony was wasted on this shameless woman. She looked at me boldly, and
laughed.
“I assure you, Mr. Butterfield,” she replied, “the last thing I thought
of when I left home was coming to see you. But oh, the rain! Look at it
now.”
I was conscious of the fresh smell of wet pavement from where I sat--the
window was open. The wheels of a hansom went past with a watery swish,
the horse’s hoofs slapping clear in the deserted street, and the stones
shone with a cleanness that they had not known for a month.
“At any rate,” I said magnanimously, “you’re here for an hour or two.
It’s not going to stop yet. You may as well make a virtue of
entertaining me.”
She bowed mockingly.
“It is I who am entertained,” she replied. “You have helped me in a
watery dilemma. I am in your home. I wear your----”