“That’s a cheerful prospect,” commented Julie, surveying herself in the glass. “Can’t you put in more hairpins?”
“You’ve got about a million now.” Hester’s imagination never failed her.
“Shure you look beautiful, Miss Julie, dear,” said Bridget, “and it ain’t goin’ to come to pieces—Miss Hester’s only teasin’ yer.”
Five minutes later they were rolling through the storm in Mrs. Lennox’s brougham.
“Hester,” whispered Julie from the depths of her luxurious corner, “I never tramped out in the wet to-night to deliver a club supper, did you?”
“Certainly not,” squeezing her hand hard, “who ever heard of such a thing!”
Something very like a tremor of nervous excitement pervaded the girls as their names were announced on the threshold of Mrs. Lennox’s drawing-room. Their entrance attracted immediate attention. Mrs. Lennox received them as Mrs. Lennox would, with most charming cordiality, yet not too pronounced lest they be made to feel that their coming was not a matter of common occurrence. She made a mental note of the fact that her protégés had never looked prettier and was immensely pleased with their poise and perfect self-possession under what she knew must be for them something of an ordeal. If she could have looked into Julie’s heart she would have discovered a shyness in coming among these people that amounted to positive pain; but who would ever have suspected it from that smiling exterior and that proud tilt of the head?
As for Hester, from the moment a woman who was one of their customers bowed to her in a puzzled sort of way and then whispered so loud that every one about her could hear, “Why it’s those Dale girls!”—from that moment Hester’s spirit of deviltry awoke and she determined to outshine every girl in the room.
Mrs. Lennox immediately presented half a dozen men who formed a little group about them and presently she steered them all toward some chairs preparatory to settling down to hear the music. As they crossed the room several women with whom they had had business dealings, bowed to them cordially. In a corner on a tête-à-tête seat sat Jessie Davis with Kenneth Landor. Both looked up as the party approached and Landor gave a half-stifled exclamation. Hester’s luminous eyes swept by the girl and into the man’s face with such a distracting smile that he was on his feet in a second.
“How do you do?” she said sweetly, just the suspicion of a smile still lurking about the corners of her mouth while she extended her hand cordially.