"I didn't know I was such a fop," he said, laughing, as Miss Dwight
rallied him on his preparations for receiving the ladies. "But somehow
it seems to make a difference when a man lies on his back. They have him
at a disadvantage. Now if you'll just give me a perfectly good
handkerchief I'll consider that the reception committee is ready. Thank
you. It must be almost time for them, isn't it?"
For a young man who usually spent comparatively little of his time in
attentions to members of the other sex, but who was accustomed,
nevertheless, to be entirely at his ease with them, King acknowledged to
himself that he felt a curious excitement mounting in his veins as the
light footsteps of his guests approached.
Mrs. Burns came first into his line of vision, wearing white from head
to foot, for it was early June and the weather had grown suddenly to be
like that of midsummer. Behind her followed not the black figure King's
memory had persistently pictured, but one also clad in white--the very
simple white of a plain linen suit, with a close little white hat drawn
over the bronze-red hair. Under this hat the eyes King remembered glowed
warmly, and now there was health in the face, which was so much more
charming than the one he recalled that for a moment he could hardly
believe the two the same. Yet--the profile, as she looked at Mrs. Burns,
who spoke first, was the one which had been stamped on his mind as one
not to be forgotten.
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