himself; but as he was a man, young, and not bad looking, they forgave
him meekly.

They forgave the other man for the same reason, and forgave the girl
because she was with the men. If only they could behave themselves as
young ladies should through this ordeal! That was the effort on which
they must concentrate their minds and other organs.

"Not at all," returned Miss Devereux, every inch a princess. "We are
_here_ to be disturbed." (Alas, how true!)

She smiled at Lady Eileen, but not patronizingly, because a mysterious
instinct told her that the plain, pleasant young girl in Irish tweed
was a "swell." The men, too, were swells, or important in some way or
other. One exerted one's self to be charming to such people and to
keep the male members of the party from looking at the other girls.
"Would you like to see something else, different from what we are
showing? Evening cloaks? Day dresses? We have a number of smart little
afternoon frocks---"

"I think that white dress is the _meltingest_ thing I ever saw," said
Lady Eileen, who had walked into the room without waiting for Miss
Devereux's answer to Peter Rolls's objection.

She was a kind-hearted girl, but, after all, living models were living
models until they were dead, and she wasn't going to lose the chance
of getting a dreamy frock out of Rags! All the goddesses were on their
mettle and their feet now, though swaying like tall lilies in a high
wind and occasionally bracing themselves against mirrors, while Lady
Eileen was in the biggest chair, with Raygan and Peter Rolls standing