WHEN PIPPA PASSED
large, handsome girl with a heavy rope of auburn hair twisted low over her forehead. She had a frank, vulgar smile, and shallow, red-brown eyes. In her plump, large-limbed beauty she was like a well-kept cat. The day was damp and hot, and her mussed white shirt-waist clung to her broad curve of shoulder and breast. In her eyes, as she smiled at him, was the quiet ease of a conscious beauty. Beside her Anne seemed unimportant.
"I'm sorry about the book, Mr. Delafield," she said, with a slow smile. "But I guess you don't know Henry very well if you think any reasonable girl would think of marrying him for a minute. The gentleman I've been keeping company with some time had a little misunderstanding with me, and 'twas more or less to spite him, I guess, that I got engaged to Henry. It never seemed to me it mattered much either way."
"You have broken his heart," said Delafield stiffly.
She looked vaguely at her short, fat fingers: her hands were like a baby's in shape.
"Oh, I don't know," she said. "He's an awful
93
