Maggie felt sore; she scarcely knew why. Her voice was bright, her eyes shining, her cheeks radiant in their rich and lovely bloom. But there was a quality in her voice which Hammond recognised—a certain ring which meant defiance, and which prophesied to those who knew her well that one of her bad half-hours was not very far off.
Maggie seated herself near a girl who was a comparative stranger and began to talk. Hammond drew near, and made a third in the conversation. Maggie talked in the brilliant, somewhat reckless fashion which she occasionally adopted. Hammond listened, now and then uttered a short sentence, now and then was silent, with disapproval in his eyes.
Maggie read their expression like a book.
“He shall be angry with me,” she said to herself. Her words became a little wilder. The sentiments she uttered were the reverse of those Hammond held.
Soon a few old friends came up. They were jolly, merry, good-humoured girls, who were all prepared to look up to Maggie Oliphant, and to worship her beauty and cleverness if she would allow them. Maggie welcomed the girls with effusion, let them metaphorically sit at her feet, and proceeded to disenchant them as hard as she could.
Some garbled accounts of the auction at St. Benet’s had reached them, and they were anxious to get a full report from Miss Oliphant. Did she not think it a scandalous sort of thing to have occurred?
“Not at all,” answered Maggie in her sweetest tones; “it was capital fun, I assure you.”
“Were you really there?” asked Miss Duncan, the eldest of the girls. “We heard it, of course, but could scarcely believe it possible.”
“Of course I was there,” replied Maggie. “Whenever there is anything really amusing going on, I am always in the thick of it.”