Explore "The Expensive Halo" by Josephine Tey on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As Mary made her happy way downstairs, Ursula was lying watching the firelight flicker on her bedroom wall and wondering what she was going to do about Gareth Ellis. It was the first time that she had ever paused to examine a line of action. But then! Was she really going to make a fool of herself over this boy? What in heaven's name was there in him to attract her? His talent? She had known some of the greatest musicians in the world. His looks? He was what Daphne had said: like something that had been wrung out. He was a painfully ordinary little suburban fiddler, with a cockney accent and badly waved hair. What on earth made her interested in him!
And while her reasonable worldly mind behaved with such commendable lucidity, she herself was remembering with a queer tenderness the way his mouth moved irresolutely when he spoke, the little hollow below his cheek bone, his funny, adorable freckles, the way his long eyes, so unexpectedly dark, slid round to her in appreciation before he smiled at what she had said, his thin boy's hands, his cheeky shyness. A dozen times, while her mind recited his impossibilities, she went down that street with him, slim and silent at her side. He had not been more than an inch taller than she. She had been able to look straight across at his profile, half-hidden between his upturned collar and the brim of his black soft hat. And she had been filled with an eager happiness that was strange and lovely.