Miss Beatrice Wing swept indignantly down the stairs into the conservatory. The interior of the house, planned after the Colonial fashion, was filled with surprising little flights of steps and with delightful irregularities.
“Still, it was a very good supper,” said Mrs. McShane behind her. She kept hesitating before the younger woman’s elaborate train. Her voice was one of those plaintive little pipes that belong to many small and timid women. Compared with Miss Wing and her radiant millinery, she seemed shriveled and impoverished.
“Oh, what difference does it make, anyway?” This time the voice was loud and sonorous. It came from William Farley, Washington correspondent of the New York Gazette, a thick-set man with a face that was boyish in spite of the fine web of wrinkles around each eye. He looked the personification of amiability, and was plainly amused by the young woman’s indignation.
Miss Wing sank into one of the wicker seats and proceeded to fan herself vigorously, throwing back her head and letting the light flash from the gems on her round, white neck. “Well, I believe in standing on your dignity.”
“I didn’t know we had any,” said Farley, with a laugh.
Miss Wing turned to a young woman who was extravagantly dressed in a gray-flowered silk, and who had just followed Mrs. McShane down the steps. “Listen to that, will you, Emily? I once heard Mrs. Briggs say that she hated newspaper people,” she added, to the group.
Farley looked down from the head of the steps and smiled pleasantly. “That doesn’t sound like Mrs. Briggs!”
Miss Wing sat bolt upright and let her fan drop into her lap. “Well, if I had known we were going to be shoved off for supper to a side room like that, I’d never have come. I didn’t come as a reporter, anyway.”
“What did you come as?” Farley asked, as he slowly descended the stairs, brushing against the tall palms on either side. From the other rooms music came faintly, mingled with talk and laughter.
“I came as a friend of Congressman Briggs,” Miss Wing replied, with spirit.