So we smoked, Worth indifferent, I giving all the[Pg 33] attention to the people over there: bride and groom; a couple of fair haired girls so like the bride that I guessed them to be sisters; a freckled, impudent looking little flapper I wasn't so sure of; two older men, and an older woman. Then a shifting of figures gave me sight of a face that I hadn't seen before, and I drew in my breath with a whistle. [Pg 33] "Whew! Who's the dark girl? She's a beauty!" "Dark girl?" Worth had interest enough to lean into the place where I got my view; after he did so he remained to stare. I sat and grinned while he muttered, "Can't be.... I believe it is!" Something to make him sit up and take notice now. I didn't wonder at his fixed study of the young creature. Not so dressed up as the others—I think she wore what ladies call an evening blouse with a street suit; a brunette, but of a tinting so delicate that she fairly sparkled, she took the shine off those blonde girls. Her small beautifully formed, uncovered head had the living jet of the crow's wing; her great eyes, long-lashed and sumptuously set, showed ebon irises almost obliterating the white. Dark, shining, she was a night with stars, that girl. "Funny thing," Worth spoke, moving his head to keep in line with that face. "How could she grow up to be like this—a child that wasn't allowed any childhood? Lord, she never even had a doll!" "Some doll herself now," I smiled. "Yeh," he assented absently, "she's good looking—but where did she learn to dress like that—and play the game?" [Pg 34]"Where they all learn it." I enjoyed very much seeing him interested. "From her mother, and her sisters, or the other girls." [Pg 34] "Not." He was positive. "Her mother died when she was a baby. Her father wouldn't let her be with other children—treated her like one of the instruments in his laboratory; trained her in her high chair; problems in concentration dumped down into its tray, punishment if she made a failure; God knows what kind of a reward if she succeeded; maybe no more than her bowl of bread and milk. That's the kind of a deal she got when she was a kid. And will you look at her now!" If he kept up his open staring at the girl, it would be
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