"I—er—wanted ⸺" drawled Bertie. "But it does n't matter. Another time."
"You need n't mind her," said Lady Turnour, with a nod toward me. "It 's only my maid. I 'm giving her a dress for the servants' ball to-night."
Bertie gave vent to the ghost of a whistle, below his breath. He looked at me, twisting the end of his small fair moustache, as he had looked at Jack Dane last night; and though his expression was different, I liked it no better.
"Thought it was a new guest," said he.
"I suppose you did n't take her for a lady, did you?" my mistress was curious to know. "You pride yourself on your discrimination, your stepfather says."
"There 's nothing the matter with my discrimination," replied the young man, smiling. But his smile was not for her ladyship. It was for me; and it was meant to be a piquant little secret between us two.
How well I remembered asking the chauffeur, "Could you know a Bertie?" And how he answered that he had known one, and consequently did n't want to know another. Here was the same Bertie; and now that I too knew him, I thought I would prefer to know another, rather than know more of him. Yet he was good-looking, almost handsome. He had short, curly light hair, eyes as blue as turquoises, seen by daylight, full red lips under the little moustache, a white forehead, a dimple in the chin, and a very good figure. He had also an educated, perhaps too well educated, voice, which tried to advertise that it had been made at Oxford; and he had hands as carefully kept as a pretty woman's, with manicured, filbert-shaped nails.
