"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.