Читать книгу Birthright онлайн

40 страница из 70

“It's a pleasure to doll up for a man like you, Peter. You see a girl's good points—if she has any,” she tacked on demurely.

“Oh, just any man—”

“Don't think it! Don't think it!” waved down Cissie, humorously.

“But, Cissie, how is it possible—”

“Just blind.” Cissie rippled into a boarding-school laugh. “I could wear the whole rue del Opera here in Niggertown, and nobody would ever see it but you.”

​Cissie was moving toward the door. Peter tried to detain her. He enjoyed the implication of Tump Pack's stupidity, in their badinage, but she would not stay. He was finally reduced to thanking her for her present, then stood guard as she tripped out into the grimy street. In the sunshine her glossy black hair and canary dress looked as trim and brilliant as the plumage of a chaffinch.

Peter Siner walked back into the kitchen with the fixed smile of a man who is thinking of a pretty girl. The black dowager in the kitchen received him in silence, with her thick lips pouted. When Peter observed it, he felt slightly amused at his mother's resentment.