Page:Rowland--The closing net.djvu/269

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QUICKSANDS
249

coming in a way that was very pretty to see. Her face was round rather than oval, and wore habitually an expression partly alert, partly saucy. It was not a beautiful face, nor was it by any means aristocratic in feature, the nose being small, turned up at the end and rather low in the middle, while her upper lip was pulled up in an habitual pout which showed the red, and the lower one was tucked in at the corners, like a baby's. You see lots of faces like Rosalie's in the front row of a pretty chorus, with figures to match; but Rosalie's expression had something which most of the show girls lack—and that was force and character, partly the result of a resolute little chin and partly from a sort of childish purity, such as you sometimes notice under the big hood of a Sister of Charity. One felt instinctively that she was a good girl; also that the person who tried to make her otherwise stood a good chance of getting hurt. Rosalie possessed the inherited virtue of the Irish girls, who are as proverbially careful of themselves as they are bountiful to the man with whom they choose to mate. A Celtic trait that; and French girls well brought up are very similar.

"I must go and start the déjeuner," said Rosalie. "Here's the Matin and here's the Herald. Sœur Anne Marie said you might see the papers if you had no fever—and you look cool enough." And with a bright little nod she went out.

Just as I had expected, the papers were full of the attempted robbery at Baron Hertzfeld's; and the artistes who assisted at the luncheon party must have thought they'd struck a good vein of advertising value.