He made it sound like the most delicious praise.
Mr. Ponsonby was taller and older than Mark. He was nineteen. She thought
he was the nicest looking person she had ever seen.
His face was the colour of thick white honey; his hair was very dark, and
he had long blue eyes and long black eyebrows like bars, drawn close down
on to the blue. His nose would have been hooky if it hadn't been so
straight, and his mouth was quiet and serious. When he talked to you his
mouth and eyes looked as if they liked it.
Mark came and said, "Minky, if you stodge like that you'll get all
flabby."
It wasn't nice of Mark to say that before Mr. Ponsonby, when he knew
perfectly well that she could jump her own height.
"_Me_ flabby? Feel my muscle."
It rose up hard under her soft skin.
"Feel it, Mr. Ponsonby."
"I say--_what_ a biceps!"
"Yes, but," Mark said, "you should feel his."
His was even bigger and harder than Mark's. "Mine," she said sorrowfully,
"will never be as good as his."
Then Mamma came and told her it was bed-time, and Mr. Ponsonby said, "Oh,
Mrs. Olivier, _not_ yet."
"Five minutes more, then."
But the five minutes were never any good. You just sat counting them.
And when it was all over and Mr. Ponsonby strode across the drawing-room
and opened the door for her she went laughing; she stood in the doorway
and laughed. When you were sent to bed at nine the only dignified thing
was to pretend you didn't care.
And Mr. Ponsonby, holding the door so that Mamma couldn't see him, looked
at her and shook his head, as much as to say, "You and I know it isn't a
joke for either of us, this unrighteous banishment."