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“I wonder what he’s like.”
“Oh, I’m sure I know. Very big and massive, with a bald head
and an immense gold chain across an immense tummy. A large, fat,
clean-shaven, red face and a booming voice.”
Mrs. Fowler came in. She wore a very stiff black silk dress
with a wide skirt and a train. At the neck it was cut into a timid V and
the sleeves came down to the elbows. She wore a necklace of
diamonds set in silver. She carried in her hands a long pair of black
gloves and a fan of black ostrich feathers. She managed (as so few
people do) to look exactly what she was. You could never have
thought her anything in the world but the respectable relict of a
North-country manufacturer of ample means.
“You’ve really got quite a pretty neck, Jane,” said Mrs. Tower
with a kindly smile.
It was indeed astonishingly young when you compared it with
her weather-beaten face. It was smooth and unlined and the skin was
white. And I noticed then that her head was very well placed on her
shoulders.
“Has Marion told you my news?” she said, turning to me with
that really charming smile of hers as if we were already old friends.
“I must congratulate you,” I said.
“Wait to do that till you've seen my young man.”
“I think it’s too sweet to hear you talk of your young man,”
smiled Mrs. Tower.
Mrs. Fowler’s eyes certainly twinkled behind her preposterous
spectacles.
“Don’t expect anyone too old. You wouldn’t like me to marry a
decrepit old gentleman with one foot in the grave, would you?”
This was the only warning she gave us. Indeed there was no
time for any further discussion, for the butler flung open the door and
in a loud voice announced:
“Mr. Gilbert Napier.”
There entered a youth in a very well-cut dinner jacket. He was
slight, not very tall, with fair hair in which there was a hint of a
natural wave, clean-shaven and blue-eyed. He was not particularly
good-looking, but he had a pleasant, amiable face. In ten years he
would probably be wizened and sallow; but now, in extreme youth,
he was fresh and clean and blooming. For he was certainly not more
than twenty-four. My first thought was that this was the son of Jane