Yet he saw that Delilah took the little man very seriously, that she
hung on his words of advice, and that she was obedient to his demands
upon her.
"She'll marry him some day," he said to himself, and Delilah seemed to
divine his thought, for when at last Colin had rushed back to his
sketch, she settled herself in her low chair, and told Porter of their
first meeting.
"I'll begin at the beginning," she said; "it is almost too funny to be
true, and it could not possibly have happened to any one but me and
Colin.
"It was last summer when I was on the North Shore. Father and I stayed
at a big hotel, but I was crazy to get acquainted with the cottage
colony.
"But somehow I didn't seem to make good--you see that was in my crude
days when I wanted to be a cubist picture instead of a daguerreotype.
I liked to be startling, and thought that to attract attention was to
attract friends--but I found that I did not attract them.
"One night in August there was a big dance on at one of the hotels, and
I wanted a gown which should outshine all the others--the ball was to
be given for the benefit of a local chanty, and all the cottage colony
would attend. I sent an order for a gown to my dressmaker, and she
shipped out a strange and wonderful creation. It was an imported
affair--you know the kind--with a bodice of a string of jet and a wisp
of lace--with a tulle tunic, and a skirt of gold brocade that was so
tight about my feet that it had the effect of Turkish trousers. For my
head she sent a strip of gold gauze which was to be swathed around and
around my hair in a sort of nun's coif, so that only a little knot
could show at the back and practically none in front. It was the last
cry in fashions. It made me look like a dream from the Arabian Nights,
and I liked it."
She laughed, and, in spite of himself, Porter laughed with her.
"I wore it to the dance, and it was there that I met Colin Quale. I
wish I could make you see the scene--the great ballroom, and all the
other women staring at me as I came in--and the men, smiling.
"I was in my element. I thought, in those days, that the test of charm
was to hold the eyes of the multitude. To-day I know that it is to
hold the eyes of the elect, and it is Colin who has taught me.