“Ray Vilas.”
This was the shot that told. Cora sprang down from the table with an exclamation.
Hedrick, subduing elation, added gently, in a mournful whisper:
“Poor old Dick Lindley!”
His efforts to sting his sister were completely successful at last: Cora was visibly agitated, and appealed hotly to her mother. “Am I to bear this kind of thing all my life? Aren’t you ever going to punish his insolence?”
“Hedrick, Hedrick!” said Mrs. Madison sadly.
Cora turned to the girl by the window with a pathetic gesture. “Laura——” she said, and hesitated.
Laura Madison looked up into her sister’s troubled eyes.
“I feel so morbid,” said Cora, flushing a little and glancing away. “I wish——” She stopped.
The silent Laura set aside her work, rose and went out of the room. Her cheeks, too, had reddened faintly, a circumstance sharply noted by the terrible boy. He sat where he was, asprawl, propped by his arms behind him, watching with acute concentration the injured departure of Cora, following her sister. At the door, Cora, without pausing, threw him a look over her shoulder: a full-eyed shot of frankest hatred.