Out it came bodily in my hand, so I carefully pushed it back, and tried a
large brass knocker instead, a massive affair that looked as though it
had once been part of a shipwreck. I knocked once, I knocked twice, I
knocked thrice, and then the door opened and I enjoyed a fresh sensation.
Instead of the prehistoric being I had expected, a girl stood in the open
door looking at me out of a quite remarkably bright pair of
eyes--disconcertingly bright in fact. She was dressed in the very
smartest and most-up-to-date country kit; short tweed skirt of a pleasing
greenish hue, stockings to match, brown brogued shoes, and a blouse that
might have come from Paris. Her hair was dressed as fashionably as the
rest of her, and her face was of precisely the kind I had least expected
to see, rather thin with neatly chiselled features and delicate
eye-brows, and an entirely sophisticated expression. There was no doubt
she was decidedly pretty, and quite delightfully fresh and trim looking.
But her eyes were her best feature. As I looked straight into them for an
instant I could scarcely bring myself to play the part I had arranged.
They seemed as though they would be a little difficult to deceive.
However, thank Heaven I have lived down most of the virtues that
embarrass the young. I had lied before, been found out, and lived through
it; so I clicked my heels together, bowed, and enquired,
"Is Master Rindall in?"
(My accent wasn't really quite as bad as that, but I should have to
invent fresh vowels to illustrate what it actually sounded like.
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