To watch her was becoming a pleasure. He wondered what her smile might be like--all the while pretending an absent-minded air which cloaked his idle curiosity.
She waited, undisturbed, for him to come to some conclusion. And all the while he was thinking that her lips were perhaps just a trifle too full--that there was more of Aphrodite in her face than of any saint he remembered; but her figure was thin enough for any saint. Perhaps a course of banquets--perhaps a régime under a diet list warranted to improve----
"Did you ever see the Desboro collection, Miss Nevers?" he asked vaguely.
"What expert will you send to catalogue and appraise it?"
"I knew, of course, that it was your father's. But I never supposed that you----"
"Did you wish to have an appraisement made, Mr. Desboro?" she interrupted dryly.
"Why, yes, I suppose so. Otherwise, I wouldn't know what to ask for anything."
"Have you really decided to sell that superb collection?" she demanded.
"What else can I do?" he inquired gayly. "I suppose the Museum ought to have it, but I can't afford to give it away or to keep it. In other words--and brutal ones--I need money."
And he knew she didn't mean that she was sorry because he needed money, but because the Museum was not to have the arms, armour, jades, and ivories. Yet, somehow, her "I am sorry" sounded rather sweet to him.
For a while he sat silent, one knee crossed over the other, twisting the silver crook of his stick. From moment to moment she raised her eyes from the blotter to let them rest inquiringly on him, then went on tracing arabesques over her blotter with an inkless pen. One slender hand was bracketed on her hip, and he noticed the fingers, smooth and rounded as a child's. Nor could he keep his eyes from her profile, with its delicate, short nose, ever so slightly arched, and its lips, just a trifle too sensuous--and that soft lock astray again against her cheek. No, her hair was not dyed, either. And it was as though she divined his thought, for she looked up suddenly from her blotter and he instantly gazed elsewhere, feeling guilty and impertinent--sentiments not often experienced by that young man.
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Miss Nevers," he concluded, "I'll write you a letter to my housekeeper, Mrs. Quant. Shall I? And you'll go up and look over the collection and let me know what you think of it!"