Mrs. Clephane surveyed her calmly. “To New York—at least I can.”
They all screamed it at her at once: “N’York?” and again she dropped the two syllables slowly from disdainful lips.
“Well, I never! Whaffor, though?” questioned Horace from the depths of a fresh bumper.
Mrs. Clephane swept the table with a cool eye. “Business—family business,” she said.
“Criky!” burst from Horace. And: “Say, Sid, a drop of fine, just to help us over the shock? Well, here’s to the success of the lady’s Family Business!” he concluded with a just-perceptible wink, emptying his champagne goblet and replacing it by the big bubble-shaped liqueur glass into which a thoughtful waiter had already measured out the proper quantity of the most expensive fine.
III.
AS Kate Clephane stood on deck, straining her eyes at the Babylonian New York which seemed to sway and totter toward her menacingly, she felt a light hand on her arm.
“Anne!”
She barely suppressed the questioning lift of her voice; for the length of a heart-beat she had not been absolutely certain. Then ... yes, there was her whole youth, her whole married past, in that small pale oval—her own hair, but duskier, stronger; something of her smile too, she fancied; and John Clephane’s straight rather heavy nose, beneath old Mrs. Clephane’s awful brows.
“But the eyes—you chose your own eyes, my darling!” She had the girl at arms’-length, her own head thrown back a little: Anne was slightly the taller, and her pale face hung over her mother’s like a young moon seen through mist.