Colonel Fiske, so far from slackening his pace to help his young guests out of their predicament, laughed loudly and cracked his whip over the horses' ears. They went up the long, curving driveway like a whirlwind, and drew up under the porte-cochère of a very large brick-and-stone house with another abrupt jerk which upset those in the sleigh who had succeeded in regaining their seats. Pandemonium broke out again, in the midst of which Sylvia saw that Mrs. Fiske had come to the doorway and stood in it with a timid smile. The Colonel did not look at her, Jerry nodded carelessly to her as he passed in, and of all the disheveled, flushed, and laughing young people who crowded past her into the house, only Sylvia and Eleanor recognized her existence. The others went past her without a glance, exclaimed at the lateness of the hour, cried out that they must go and "fix up" for lunch, and ran upstairs, filling the house with their voices. Sylvia heard one girl cry to another, "Oh, I've had such a good time! I've hollered till I'm hoarse!"
After luncheon, a meal at which more costly food was served than Sylvia had ever before seen, Jerry suggested between puffs of the cigarette he was lighting that they have a game of billiards. Most of the young people trooped off after him into the billiard-room, but Sylvia, after a moment's hesitation, lingered near the big wood-fire in the hall, unwilling to admit that she had never seen a billiard table. She made a pretext of staying to talk to Mrs. Fiske, who sat stooping her tall figure forward in a chair too small for her. Sylvia looked at this ungraceful attitude with strong disapproval. What she thought was that such inattention to looks was perfectly inexcusable. What she said was, in a very gracious voice: "What a beautiful home you have, Mrs. Fiske! How wonderfully happy you must be in it."
The other woman started a little at being addressed, and looked around vaguely at the conventional luxury of the room, with its highly polished floors, its huge rich rugs, its antlers on the wall, and its deeply upholstered leather chairs. When Sylvia signified her intention of continuing the talk by taking a seat beside the fire, Mrs. Fiske roused herself to the responsibility of entertaining the young guest. After some futile attempts at conversation in the abstract, she discharged this responsibility through the familiar expedient of the family photograph album. With this between them, the two women were able to go through the required form of avoiding silences. Sylvia was fearfully bored by the succession of unknown faces, and utterly unable to distinguish, in her hostess' somewhat disconnected talk, between the different sets of the Colonel's children. "This one is Stanley, Jermain's brother, who died when he was a baby," the dull voice droned on; "and this is Mattie in her wedding dress."
"Oh, I didn't know Jerry had a married sister," murmured Sylvia indifferently, glad of any comment to make.
"She's only his half-sister, a great deal older."
"But you haven't a daughter old enough to be married?" queried
Sylvia, astonished.
"Oh—no—no. Mattie is the daughter of the Colonel's first wife."
"Oh," said Sylvia awkwardly, remembering now that Mrs. Draper had spoken of the Colonel's several marriages. She added to explain her question, "I'd forgotten that Jerry's mother was the Colonel's second wife and not his first."
"She was his third," breathed Mrs. Fiske, looking down at the pages of the album.
Sylvia repressed a "Good gracious!" of startled repugnance to the topic, and said, to turn the conversation, "Oh, who is that beautiful little girl with the fur cap?"