"Her sister, you know, was thick with my niece, Barbara

Olliphant," said Peter Pomeroy. "And funny thing!--when Barbara

was married..."

It was a long story, and fortunately moved away from the previous

topic; so that when it was presently interrupted by the arrival of

two women, everybody in the group had cause to feel gratitude for

a merciful deliverance.

The two women were Rachael and Carol Breckenridge, who came in a

little breathless, the throbbing engine of their motor car still

sounding faintly from the direction of the club doorway. Carol, a

slender, black-eyed, dusky-skinned girl of seventeen, took her

place beside Miss Sartoris on the fender, granting a brief

unsmiling nod to one or two friends, and eying the group between

the loose locks of her smoky, cropped black hair with the

inscrutable, almost brooding, expression that was her favorite

affectation. Her lithe, loosely built little body was as flat as a

boy's, she clasped her crossed knees with slender, satin-smooth

little brown hands, exposing by her attitude a frill of

embroidered petticoat, a transparent stretch of ash-gray silk

stocking, and smart ash-gray buckskin slippers with silver

buckles.

She was an effective little figure in the mingled twilight and

firelight, but it was toward her beautiful stepmother that

everybody looked as Rachael Breckenridge seated herself on the arm

of old Mrs. Torrence's chair and sent a careless greeting about

the circle.

"Hello, everybody!" she said, in a voice of extraordinary richness

and sweetness, "Peter, Dolly, Vivian--HELLO, Elinor! How do you

do, Mrs. Emory?" There was an aside when the newcomer said

imperatively to a club attendant, "We'll have some light here,

please!" Then she resumed easily: "I do beg your pardon, Mrs.

Emory, I interrupted you--"

"I only said that you were a little late for tea," said Mrs.

Emory, sweetly, wishing with a sort of futile rage that she could

learn to say almost nothing when this other woman, with her

insulting bright air of making one feel inferior, was about. The

Emorys had lived in Belvedere Hills for two years, coming from

Denver with much money and irrefutable credentials. They had been

members of the club perhaps half that time, members in good

standing. But Mrs. Emory would have paid a large sum to have

Rachael Breckenridge call her "Belle," and Rachael Breckenridge

knew it.

The lights, duly poured in a soft flood from all sides of the

room, revealed in Mrs. Breckenridge one of those beauties that an

older generation of diarists and letter writers frankly spelled

with a capital letter as distinguishing her charms from those of a

thousand of lesser degree. When such beauty is unaccompanied by

intellect it is a royal dower, and its possessor may serenely

command half a century of unquestioning adoration from the sons of

men, and all the good things of life as well.




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