“Jason always was quick acting,” Hazzard Burrage declared; “he never stopped to consider; and it's as like as not he'll need that money. It wouldn't surprise me if when he sat down and counted what he had Jason'd find it was less than he thought.”
“He wrote me,” Olive stated, “that we could build a house as big as the Canderays'.”
“Jason always was one to talk,” Mrs. Burrage replied in defense of her son.
Olive moved over to the older woman and held the dishes to be replaced in the cupboard. They commented on the force of the wind throughout the night. “The tail end of a blow at sea,” Bur-rage told them; “I wouldn't wonder but it reached right down to the West Indies.”
“I hope he brings me a grey satinet pelerine like I wrote,” said Mrs. Burrage. She was obviously flushed at the thought of the possession of such a garment—a fact which Olive felt, at the other's age, to be inappropriate to the not distant solemnity of the Christian ordeal of death. She repeated automatically: “... turn from these vanities unto the living God.” She rose:
“I'll let you know if I hear anything, and anyhow stop in tomorrow.”
Outside, sere leaves were whirling in grey funnels of dust, the intense blue bay sparkled under the cobalt sky; and, leaving Marlboro Street with a hand on her bonnet, she ran directly into Honora Canderay.
“Oh!” Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly concerned. “Indeed if I saw you, Honora; the wind was that strong pulling at a person.”
“What does it matter?” Honora replied. She was wrapped from throat to hem in a cinnamon colored velvet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining of soft, quilted yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless; her delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery that was the visible sign of her disturbing quality. She laid a hand, in a short, furred kid glove, on Olive's arm.
“I am so pleased about Jason's success,” she continued, in a clear insistent voice. “You must be mad with anxiety to have him back. It's the most romantic thing in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul?”