bought in Rhodesian
shops; but when well cut, they were battered and worn. Take, for
instance, Mrs. Lisle's gown of pale-green satin and sequins. She had
been an actress before she married Barton Lisle and came out to the ups
and downs of a mining speculator's life, and all her clothes were
_rechauffees_ of the toilettes in which she had once dazzled provincial
audiences. Gay Liscannon's frock of pale rose-leaf silk, with a skirt
that was a flurry of delicious little frills and a bodice of lace, sewn
with little paste dew drops that folded around her fresh young form
like the filmy wings of a butterfly, had Bond Street stamped all over
it, as they who ran might read; but it had not been paid for, although
it was already tumbling into little tears and tatters. For Gay was no
Penelope to sit patiently at home and ply the nimble needle. She had
worn it to six dances already, and would probably wear it another six
before she summoned up the nerve to present her father with the bill.
Berlie Hallett possessed a London godmother in the shape of an aunt who
sent her an occasional frock, and her white-tulle-and-forget-me-nots
was all that it should have been except that it had turned to an ashen
creamy hue, possessed a long tear down the back (unskilfully concealed
by a ribbon sash), lacked about six yards of lace (accidentally ripped
off the flounces), and was minus a few dozen posies of forget-me-nots
(now in the possession of various amorous young men). Berlie no more
than her friend Gay was a sit-by-the-fire-and-mend creature. They were
real, live, out-of-door, golfing, hard-riding girls, full of spirits
and gaiety and _joie de vivre_.
Berlie, at that moment, was dancing with all her soul as well as her
feet, melted in the arms of Johnny Doran, a rich rancher who had
proposed to her eight times and whom she intended should propose
another ten before she finally refused him. But Gay, the best dancer
in Rhodesia, was not dancing. Her feet were tingling, and the music
was in her brain like wine, and her heart was burning, and her eyes,
though not turned that way, were watching, with impatient wrath, the
door across the room. But with her lips she smiled at the little group
of clamouring, protesting men about her, and gave out one brief
statement.
"My shoe hurts me."
"Which one?" they clamoured, like a lot of school-boys. "And why?
It's the same pair you danced to the dawn in last week--why should it
hurt you
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