“For shame, Olive,” laughed Mrs. Wyndwood. “I shall punish you by not letting you see it. We are at your service, Mr. Strang. Show us what you please.”
“May I not get you any refreshment?” he said, as they passed into the smaller room, and into a perceptibly cooler atmosphere.
“No, thank you; this is refreshing enough,” said Mrs. Wyndwood, with a sigh of relief.
“Mrs. Wyndwood means that she lives on air,” said her friend.
“Oh, Olive, I eat quite as much as you.”
“You used to before you developed this Dolkovitch phase, and began understudying an angel.”
Matthew saw the opportunity for a commonplace compliment, but he did not take it. The plane on which Mrs. Wyndwood existed demanded reverential originality. Every word she said sounded magically musical, and delightfully wise and witty. Olive’s remarks one merely smiled at, though she, too, had a low voice, “that excellent thing in woman,” and was considered handsome by those she did not annoy. She reminded the painter of a Caryatid as she stood there, rather more sturdy than her friend, and shorter, with stronger features and a firmer chin, but to the full as graciously proportioned. She had dark hair and eyes, and a warm coloring that reached its most vivid tint in the intense red of the lips. Her dress was of a soft green-blue, cut high, with yellow roses at the throat, and but for the painter’s preoccupation with her friend, would have challenged his eye by subtle harmonies.
“There goes William Lodge, the poet,” cried Mrs. Wyndwood, suddenly.
“Impossible!” said Olive.
“But it is the poet,” insisted Mrs. Wyndwood.