By this time I had become a frequent visitor in the Galt household. A summer had passed since my first appearance there. The second time I came to dinner Vera presented herself, though tardily. As she entered the dining room Galt rose and made her an exaggerated bow, which she altogether disregarded.
“All got up this evening!” he said, squinting at her when she was seated. That she disregarded, too, looking cold and bored. She wore a black party gown of some very filmy stuff, cut rather low, with an effect of elaborate simplicity. A small solitary gem gleamed in her blue-black hair and a point of light shone in each of her eyes. She was forbiddingly resplendent, with an immemorial, jewel-like quality. She derived entirely from her mother and in no particular resembled her father. He tried another sally.
“Isn’t it chilly over there by you, Vera child?” he asked, ironically solicitous.
Instantly she replied: “Yes, father dear. Won’t you bring me my scarf, please.”
After that he let her alone. When dinner was over he took me off to his room again and we passed another evening with the railroads.
No dinner passed without some glow of the feud between Galt and Vera. They seldom saw each other at any other time. Her habits were luxurious. She never came down to breakfast. He delighted to torment her and always came off with the worst of it. Perhaps he secretly enjoyed that, too. She was more than a match for him. Their methods were very different. He taunted and teased, without finesse. She retorted with cold, keen thrusts which left him sprawling and helpless. In a pinch she turned upon him that astonishing trick she had of looking at people without seeing them. The experience, as I knew, was crushing. It never failed to make him fume.
Gradually I perceived the nature of their antagonism. Natalie was her father’s play-fellow, but Vera fascinated him. He admired her tremendously and feared her not a little. She baffled, eluded and ignored him. The only way he could get her attention was to bully her, which he did simply for the reason that he could not let her alone. But there was something on her side, too, for once I noticed that when he had failed to open hostilities she subtly provoked him to do so. Probably both enjoyed it unconsciously.
Between the sisters there was a fiercely repressed antagonism. Natalie was four years the younger and much less subtle, but in the gentle art of scratching she was the other’s equal. Both were extremely dexterous and played the game in good sportsmanship.
“I saw Mr. Shaw at the matinée today,” Natalie announced one evening. After a slight pause she added: “He seems miraculously recovered. I never saw him looking so well.”