"Well, I have to think of my complexion, Tony."

I think he knew it was not that and was puzzled. "I never saw you
looking better in my life."

She was wearing a girdle of blue with her clear, crisp white, and her
fairness was charming. She had, indeed, the look which belongs to young
Catholic girls dedicated to the Virgin who wear her colors.

It was not, however, until Anthony had been home for a week that he saw
the blue cloak. We were all on the beach--Mimi Sears and Bob Needham and
the Drakes, myself and Anthony. Nancy was late, having a foursome to
finish on the golf grounds. She came at last, threading her way gayly
through the crowd of bathers. She was without her cap, and her hair was
wound in a thick braid about her head. I saw people turning to look at
her as they had never turned to look when she had worn her shadowy gray.

"Great guns!" said a man back of me. "What a beauty!"

A deep flush stained Anthony's face, and I knew at once that he did not
like it. It was as if, having attuned his taste to the refinement of a
Japanese print, he had been called upon to admire a Fra Angelico. He
hated the obvious, and Nancy's loveliness at this moment was as definite
as the loveliness of the sky, the sea, the moon, the stars. Later I was
to learn that Anthony's taste was for a sophisticated Nancy, a mocking
Nancy, a slim, mysterious creature, with charms which were caviar to the
mob.

But Bob Needham spoke from the depths of his honest and undiscriminating
soul. "Heavens! Nancy. Where did you get it?"