“Oh, yes, she could!” and Miss Carrington gave a disagreeable sneer. “She’s quite clever enough for any deceit or treachery.”
“Stop, Cousin Lucy! I can’t let you talk so about Miss Frayne in my presence!”
“Oh, you can’t, can’t you? And, pray, what right have you to defend her? Go away, both of you! I’ll play with you no longer. Go away and send Pauline and Mr. Illsley in here. They, at least, will play fair.”
Anita Frayne rose without a word. Haviland rose too, but talking volubly. “Let up, Cousin Lucy,” he said sternly. “You’ve no right to treat Miss Frayne so. You ought to apologize to her for such rudeness.”
“Apologize!” Miss Carrington fairly shrieked; “she’ll do the apologizing, and you, too, my foolish young cousin. You little know what’s going to happen to me! To-morrow you may sing another song!”
Haviland looked at her in astonishment; the Count, thoughtfully. The same idea was in both their minds. Could she mean that she was expecting the Count to propose to her that evening?
“Nothing nice can happen to you unless you learn to control that temper of yours,” and Haviland swung away after Anita.
He found her in the next room, nestled in the corner of a big davenport, weeping into a sympathetic sofa-cushion.
“Go and find the others,” she whispered, as he came near her. “Make them go and play with her!”
Obediently, Haviland went. In the glassed sun-parlor he found Pauline Stuart, Miss Carrington’s niece, and Stephen Illsley, one of the most favored of Pauline’s many suitors.