Mary Wollaston | Page 4

didn't alter them by pretending that they
did not exist.
So instead of answering her brother's question, she sat a little straighter
in her chair, and compressed her lips.
He smiled faintly at that and added, "Anyhow she said she'd be along in
a minute or two."
"Oh," said Miss Wollaston, "you have wakened her then. I would have
suggested that the poor child be left asleep this morning."
Now he saw that she had something to tell him. "Nothing went wrong
last night after I left, I hope."

"Oh, not wrong," Miss Wollaston conceded, "only the Whitneys went
of course, when you did and the Byrnes, and Wallace Hood, but Portia
Stanton and that new husband of hers stayed. It was his doing, I
suppose. You might have thought he was waiting all the evening for
just that thing to happen. They went up to Paula's studio--Paula invited
me, of course, but I excused myself--and they played and sang until
nearly two o'clock this morning. It was all perfectly natural, I suppose.
And still I did think that Paula might have sung earlier, down in the
drawing-room when you asked her to."
"She was perfectly right to refuse." He caught his sister up rather short
on that, "I shouldn't have asked her. It was very soon after dinner. They
weren't a musical crowd anyway, except Novelli. It's utterly unfair to
expect a person like Paula to perform unless she happens to be in the
mood for it. At that she's extremely amiable about it; never refuses
unless she has some real reason. What her reason was last night, I don't
know, but you may be perfectly sure it was sufficient."
He would have realized that he was protesting too much even if he had
not read that comment in his sister's face. But somehow he couldn't
have pulled himself up but for old Nat's appearance with the platter of
ham and eggs and the first installment of the wheat cakes. He was
really hungry and he settled down to them in silence.
And, watching him between the little bites of dry toast and sips of
coffee, Miss Wollaston talked about Portia Stanton. Everybody, indeed,
was talking about Portia these days but Miss Wollaston had a special
privilege. She had known Portia's mother rather well,--Naomi Rutledge
Stanton, the suffrage leader, she was--and she had always liked and
admired Portia; liked her better than the younger and more sensational
daughter, Rose.
Miss Wollaston hoped, hoped with all her heart that Portia had not
made a tragic mistake in this matter of her marriage. She couldn't
herself quite see how a sensible girl like Portia could have done
anything so reckless as to marry a romantic young Italian pianist, ten
years at least her junior. It couldn't be denied that the experiment
seemed to have worked well so far. Portia certainly seemed happy

enough last night; contented. There was a sort of glow about her there
never was before. But the question was how long would it last. How
long would it be before those big brown Italian eyes began looking
soulfully at somebody else; somebody more....
It was here that Miss Wollaston chopped herself off short, hearing--this
time it was no false alarm--Paula's step in the hall. She'd have been
amazed, scandalized, profoundly indignant, dear good-hearted lady that
she was, had some expert in the psychology of the unconscious pointed
out to her that the reason she had begun talking about Portia was that it
gave her an outlet for expressing her misgivings about her own
brother's marriage. Paula, of course, was a different thing altogether.
What a beautiful creature she was, even at eight o'clock in the morning
at the end of an abruptly terminated night's sleep. She looked lovelier
than ever as she came in through the shadowy doorway. She wasn't a
true blonde like Mary. Her thick strong hair was a sort of golden
glorification of brown, her skin a warm tone of ivory. Her eyes, set
wide apart, were brown, and the lashes, darker than her hair, enhanced
the size of them. The look of power about Paula, inseparable from her
beauty, was not one of Miss Wollaston's feminine ideals. It spoke in
every line of her figure as well as in the lineaments of her face; in the
short, rather broad, yet cleanly defined nose; in the generous width of
her mouth; in the sculpturesque poise of her neck upon her shoulders.
Paula's clothes, too, worried her elderly sister-in-law a little, especially
the house-dresses that she affected. They were beautiful, heaven knew;
more simply beautiful perhaps than it was right that clothes should be.
There was nothing indecent about them. Dear Paula was almost
surprisingly nice in those ways. But that thing she had on now, for
instance;--a