* * * *

DESCRIPTIVE

Amory was now eighteen years old, just under six feet tall and
exceptionally, but not conventionally, handsome. He had rather a young
face, the ingenuousness of which was marred by the penetrating green eyes,
fringed with long dark eyelashes. He lacked somehow that intense
animal magnetism that so often accompanies beauty in men or women; his
personality seemed rather a mental thing, and it was not in his power to
turn it on and off like a water-faucet. But people never forgot his face.

* * * *

ISABELLE

She paused at the top of the staircase. The sensations attributed to
divers on spring-boards, leading ladies on opening nights, and lumpy,
husky young men on the day of the Big Game, crowded through her. She
should have descended to a burst of drums or a discordant blend of themes
from "Thais" and "Carmen." She had never been so curious about her
appearance, she had never been so satisfied with it. She had been
sixteen years old for six months.

"Isabelle!" called her cousin Sally from the doorway of the dressing-room.

"I'm ready." She caught a slight lump of nervousness in her throat.

"I had to send back to the house for another pair of slippers. It'll be
just a minute."