Mary's colorless face seemed to stiffen a little. So, perhaps, Mr. Mysinger was wont to see it.
"Well, wait just a minute," she ordered, rather than requested. "I'd especially like you to meet Flora."
Nice reward this for being cousinly and inviting Cousin Mary to the bridge-party: to meet that woman!
"I—really, I can't, Cousin Mary! I'll just run back and see your mother a minute—and then—"
"You can't well be so rude as that, can you?" said Mary. And then she added, as if something within her threw out the words beyond her will: "Why do you call me Cousin Mary all the time? I'm only four years older than you."
The question, of course, expected no notice. Mary was gone into the hall. Yet Angela, left unpoliced, did not immediately fly toward the bedroom region, or run and hide with the leaflets behind the sofa. It may be she feared her hard cousin a little; but besides that, in the strangest and most contradictory sort of way, it appeared that she did not altogether want to fly. She was conscious of an excitement, of a sort of unworthy curiosity.
The front door opened; there were voices. And then Mary Wing returned, her arm slipped brazenly through that of her astounding friend.
And Angela, despite all of the injunctions of propriety, looked; looked, with a sort of fearful fascination. Never in her life before, to her knowledge, had her girlish eyes rested upon a Badwoman. Though virtue went out of her, she must look this once....
"Flora, this is my cousin, Angela Flower, whom you know of, I believe. My friend, Miss Trevenna, Angela."
A look of greeting came upon the Badwoman's not displeasing face, a little smile upon the pretty, sinful lips.