Mrs. Budd gasped. There were almost tears in her reply.
“My dear Julia, you must not encourage that sort of attitude in a man. You must not forget that you are no longer a child. And I don’t at all approve of your stramming round the country, singing at the top of your lungs, in your second season! Suppose you had met those people driving up from the station!”
“Who is the woman who came with Mr. Longacre?” Julia inquired irrelevantly.
“Oh, that’s Mrs. Essington, Kitty Wykoff’s daughter. Kitty married her to some Englishman—a wretch! She’s lived in London for years. She knows Mr. Longacre. I’m so glad she’s come! I don’t know what we should have done with him if she hadn’t! He’s queer as ‘Dick’s hatband’!”
“Queer?” Julia threw the word out like a missile.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mrs. Budd said vaguely. “He’s written an opera, and when he does talk one can’t always make sure of what he means. And look at his neckties!” Mrs. Budd’s eloquent gesture condemned them out of hand.
“There’s nothing the matter with his neckties,” said her daughter, coldly. “I hear some one going down, mama.”
“Well, I don’t know what it is,” her mother threw over her shoulder; “but if they were quite right, one wouldn’t notice them.”
After the door had closed on Mrs. Budd’s glittering wake, the girl stood motionless, her eyes on her mirror. But her conscious sight was turned inward. She was struggling to recall a clear image of the neckties, which she was certain she had never noticed. What was it about them her mother so earnestly deplored? But her mental vision persisted in rising above the garment in question to the eyes that could look so steadily without staring; and through those eyes she began to see her own. Shining hazel shot with hot yellow replaced the blue—two flowering cheeks, and a crimson line of lips. Presently these smiled at her.
She drew back a step, turned half away from the glass, looked again, wriggled her white shoulders luxuriously in her lace bodice, held the hand-mirror high, and, brows drawn to one black line, earnestly contemplated her own profile.