“The paper,” she saw rather than heard, “the paper ... burn it. I saw—in a flash—that blinded me—and I fell....”
XXXVIII The Greater Love
I
The consulting surgeon was still upstairs with Dr. Schubert and the nurse. In the sun-room, the Venetian blinds drawn to shut out the hot July rays, the family sat, awaiting the verdict. Sydney and Eileen had hurried home from the West in response to a conservative telegram from Lary. Sylvia and her husband were already there. The meeting of the sisters was reserved, befitting the occasion. Now Sylvia forgot her father—her growing resentment because of the general misunderstanding with regard to her mother’s alleged visit—as she gazed across the spacious room at the beautiful young woman whom she could with difficulty accept as Mrs. Sydney Schubert.
“I can’t understand it,” she whispered to Oliver. “You know what a raw, scraggy girl she was when we left here. I couldn’t make out what Hal Marksley saw in her. But for Syd—he had such an eye for beauty. He never went with a girl who was plain or homely. Mamma never wrote us how she had changed.”
“I told you a long time ago,” her husband retorted, “that the ugly duckling had a way of growing into the swan of the family.”
Sylvia flushed, annoyed, and lapsed into silence.