Then with a last survey of her face, unaltered by the
ceremonial with the powder-puff, she stepped to the door.
But there, with her hand on the knob, she was halted by an
inexplicable hesitation about opening the door and showing herself.
She looked down at her bare shoulders and bosom, and faintly blushed.
It was really very, very low, far lower than any dress she had ever
worn! And the fact that Eleanor Hubert, that all the "swell" girls
wore theirs low, did not for the moment suffice her--it was somehow
different--their showing their shoulders and her showing her own.
She could not turn the knob and stood, irresolute, frowning vaguely,
though not very deeply disquieted. Finally she compromised by taking
up a pretty spangled scarf Aunt Victoria had sent her, wrapping it
about her like a shawl, in which quaint garb she went out in more
confidence, and walked down the hall to the stairway. Half-way down
she met Colonel Fiske just coming up to dress. Seeing one of his young
guests arrayed for the evening he made her his compliments, the first
words rather absent and perfunctory. But when he was aware which guest
she was, he warmed into a pressing and personal note, as his practised
eyes took in the beauty, tonight startlingly enhanced by excitement,
of the girl's dark, shining eyes, flushed cheeks, and white neck and
arms. He ended by lifting her hand, in his florid way, and pressing
it to his white mustache for a very fervent kiss.
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