Читать книгу The Passionate Quest онлайн

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"My chief desire at present," Matthew declared, looking at his watch, "is for luncheon."

They found a place close at hand, carefully selected by Matthew, who ordered the luncheon and checked each item on the bill before he paid. He then collected their shares from his two companions, and they sallied out into the street again.

"Now it's my turn!" Rosina exclaimed. "I shall probably shock you both. I am going to show you what a pagan I really am."

She took them to Bond Street and dragged them from shop window to shop window. Her face lit up as she discoursed to them of silks and laces, of Paris models, of pearls and Cartier's jewellery. She studied with frank envy the beautifully gowned women whom they passed. Once, lingering in front of a shop window, she began to laugh and pointed to their reflections.

"I wonder what Bond Street is thinking of us!" she exclaimed. "Don't let us ever forget our first appearance here!"

There was a certain quaintness about the trio, and certainly more than one passer-by turned to look at them. Both the young men were wearing ready-made suits of Norchester design, Philip a soft collar and tweed cap, Matthew a carefully-brushed bowler hat. There was something about them suggestive of the Saturday morning crowd poured into London from the north to witness a Football Final. Yet, at the same time, they each possessed something apart from the class to which their clothes and obvious lack of familiarity with their surroundings would seem to relegate them. Matthew's claims to originality consisted in his stolid but unobtrusive self-assurance, and the suggestion of power in his obstinate jaw and firm lips; Philip's in his Byronic type of face, his nervous features and restless eyes. Rosina, walking between the two, presented even more puzzling anomalies. Her primly fashioned, homely clothes were powerless to conceal the grace of her young limbs and body. Her girlish, almost childish air of delight in her surroundings, her soft, eager laughter, her complete absence of any form of self-consciousness, all lent an unanalysable distinction to her more obvious attractiveness. Passers-by turned to look after her, puzzled. The modern boulevardier found himself at fault. There was no place in his classification of the other sex for anything so entirely ingenuous and yet so charming.