11Greatorex, having left d**k alone at the table for a moment or two, returned upstairs bringing a girl with him. At the first sight of her d**k’s heart began to beat. It was the lady of the photograph. She was very tall and slender, and of all the boyish heads there, hers was the most haughtily borne. Her head moved slightly when she walked, like a swan’s. Her short, straight hair which quaintly framed her face, was like a blackbird’s wing, and she was dressed in unrelieved black. A black swan. She eschewed rouge; her face was tinted the palest shade of bistre in which her mouth bloomed like a crimson flower.
She acknowledged d**k with the slightest of bows, and sat down without looking at him. A silence fell on them all. Greatorex was sulky, and for once d**k’s ready tongue clave to the
