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Pop, who could swing him even now, that he measured five feet three himself, to his shoulder! Oh, no, no, it could not be true! Someone had made a mistake. Someone had cruelly frightened his mother. Hadn't their luck just come? Hadn't Pop been made a boss? "Mom-ma!" came Beryl's voice, sleepily, from the other room. "Mom-ma, what's they?"
A small arbour, domed and pillared like a temple, stood beside the fountain, and as they ascended its marble steps a strong scent of sandalwood fell like a haze of incense upon Beryl's senses. There was no light within the arbour, and on the threshold instinctively she stopped short. They were as much alone as if miles instead of yards separated them from the buzzing crowds about the palace.
It's just as I said; mother's had to work and Dale's had to work and Pop just sits in a chair and scolds and well, I never wanted to take the doll out when mother could see it after all that." Robin made no effort to conceal how deeply Beryl's story had moved her. "Oh, Beryl, I'm so sorry. But maybe things will change. They'll have to Jimmie always said, it's a long lane that has no turning.
I tried to head you off a couple of times." Beryl laughed scornfully. "It was funny!" Robin still smarted from her recent embarrassment; she did not relish Beryl's laughing at her. "We had to talk about something," she cried in defence. "Well, if you'd given me a chance I'd have talked about things that are happening in Europe. Sort of led her on, you know, so's maybe she'd give herself away.
And it's fine and beautiful my girl shall be with a dress as good as the next one. Wait! Wait!" She flew into the tiny bedroom, returning in a moment with a small box in her hands. From it she lifted a string of round green beads and held them laughingly before Beryl's staring eyes. "My beads! You shall wear them this night. It's the good old Father's blessing."
Beryl's voice rang incredulously. "Of course. I like it here and there are lots of things I want to do, but when Jimmie comes back if he wants me " her voice trembled. Beryl stared at Robin as though she saw a strange creature in the familiar guise. "You are the queerest girl. You don't seem to care for the things money can get for you!" She had to pause, to pick her words.
"Hallo, Jonathan!" called Linda. And Jonathan whipped off his shabby panama, pressed it against his breast, dropped on one knee, and kissed Linda's hand. "Greeting, my Fair One! Greeting, my Celestial Peach Blossom!" boomed the bass voice gently. "Where are the other noble dames?" "Beryl's out playing bridge and mother's giving the boy his bath... Have you come to borrow something?"
When Beryl turned suddenly and said: "Dale, this is Gordon Forsyth," she hoped he would say: "Why, I know her." However, he merely mumbled "How do you do," stiffly, and turned away, to Beryl's indignation and Robin's vague disappointment. The pot roast and the cabbage salad were as delicious as Mrs. Moira's loving pains could make them; Dale's friend talked mostly to big Danny and Mrs.
Suppressed excitement, impatience, eagerness, an inward disgust of herself for being a "selfish thing anyway" combined to give Beryl's face such an unnatural pallor and haggard tensity of expression that big Danny whirled his chair toward her and Mrs. Lynch caught her hands over her heart. "Beryl?" she cried, standing quite still.
"You'll think, my dear, you've rubbed Aladdin's lamp," she whispered to Beryl, patting down the neat white collar of Beryl's coat. Beryl thought of her words when she followed Mr. Allendyce through a long dim room, crowded with treasures of fabric and ceramic, rich in coloring, fragrant of oriental perfumes.
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