"I have not been able to discover a trace of prettiness in you." He paused. "You are simply superb," he said, looking at her with his deep bold eyes. "What makes you stay on here?" he added in another tone, surveying her curiously.
Garda turned; but Margaret had by chance left the room. "I was going to point to Margaret," she answered; "I stay because I love her—love to be with her."
"Well, you'll have a career," Lanse announced, briefly.
The next day he said to Aunt Katrina, "I should like to have seen that girl before she was married; there's such an extraordinary richness in her beauty that I don't believe she ever had an awkward age; she was probably graceful at sixteen."
"She was designing at sixteen."
"No! For whom could she have been designing down here?"
"Evert."
"And the idiot let her slip through his fingers?"
"Deliver us!" said the lady. "If I've got to hear you admire her too!"
Late in the evening of the day when she had threatened to speak to Lanse about his wife's health, Garda came and knocked at Margaret's door. "I wanted to see you," she said, entering.