The Love Affairs of Pixie | Page 3

the devotion of her young sister, so placidly, assured that the quiet family life furnished the girl with, everything necessary for her happiness, that the suggestion of an outside interest came as a shock. "Not!" she repeated blankly. "Then--then--who?"
"My lovers!" replied Pixie calmly.
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And looking back through the years, it always seemed to Bridgie Victor that with the utterance of those words the life of Pixie O'Shaughnessy entered upon a new and absorbing phase.
CHAPTER TWO.
PIXIE'S VIEWS ON MARRIAGE.
Bridgie Victor sat gazing at her sister in a numb bewilderment. It was the first, the very first time that the girl had breathed a word concerning the romantic possibilities of her own life, and even Bridgie's trained imagination failed to rise to the occasion. Pixie! Lovers! Lovers! Pixie! ... The juxtaposition of ideas was too preposterous to be grasped. Pixie was a child, the baby of the family, just a bigger, more entertaining baby to play with the tinies of the second generation, who treated her as one of themselves, and one and all scorned to bestow the title of "aunt."
There was a young Patricia in the nursery at Knock Castle, and a second edition in the Victor nursery upstairs; but though the baptismal name of the little sister had been copied, not even the adoring mothers themselves would have dreamed of borrowing the beloved pet name, Pixie's nose might not be to her approval; it might even scoop--to be perfectly candid, it did scoop--but it had never yet been put out of joint. The one and only, the inimitable Pixie, she still lived enthroned in the hearts of her brothers and sisters, as something specially and peculiarly their own.
So it was that a pang rent Bridgie's heart at the realisation that the little sister was grown-up, was actually twenty years of age--past twenty, going to be twenty-one in a few more months, and that the time was approaching when a stranger might have the audacity to steal her from the fold. To her own heart, Bridgie realised the likelihood of such a theft, and the naturalness thereof: outwardly, for Pixie's benefit she appeared shocked to death.
"L-lovers!" gasped Bridgie. "Lovers! Is it you, Pixie O'Shaughnessy, I hear talking of such things? I'm surprised; I'm shocked! I never could have believed you troubled your head about such matters."
"But I do," asserted Pixie cheerfully. "Lots. Not to say trouble, exactly, for it's most agreeable. I pretend about them, and decide what they'll be like. When I see a man that takes my fancy, I add him to the list. Mostly they're clean-shaved, but I saw one the other day with a beard--" She lifted a warning finger to stay Bridgie's cry of protest. "Not a straggler, but a naval one, short and trim; and you wouldn't believe how becoming it was! I decided then to have one with a beard. And they are mostly tall and handsome, and rolling in riches, so that I can buy anything I like, nose included. But one must be poor and sad, because that," announced Pixie, in her most radiant fashion, "would be good for my character. I'd be sorry for him, the creature! And, as they say in books, 'twould soften me. Would you say honestly, now, Bridgie, that I'm in need of softening?"
"I should not. I should say you were soft enough already. Too soft!" declared Bridgie sternly. "`Them,' indeed! Plural, I'll trouble you! Just realise, my child, that there are not enough men to go round, and don't waste time making pictures of a chorus who will never appear. If you have one lover, it will be more than your share; and it's doubtful if you ever get that."
"I doubt it," maintained Pixie sturdily. "I'm plain, but I've a way. You know yourself, me dear, I've a way! ... I'm afraid I'll have lots; and that's the trouble of it, for as sure as you're there, Bridgie, I'll accept them all! 'Twouldn't be in my heart to say no, with a nice man begging to be allowed to take care of me. I'd love him on the spot for being so kind; or if I didn't, and I saw him upset, it would seem only decent to comfort him, so 'twould end the same way. ... It breaks my heart when the girls refuse the nice man in books, and I always long to be able to run after him when he leaves the room--ashy pale, with a nerve twitching beside his eye--and ask him will I do instead! If I feel like that to another girl's lover, what will I do to my own?"
Bridgie stared aghast. Her brain was still reeling from the shock of hearing Pixie refer to the subject of lovers at all, and here was yet another problem looming ahead. With a