Into the midst of these thoughts the figure of Olivia herself appeared, moving toward the stairway, walking beside Sabine. They were laughing over something, Sabine in the sly, mocking way she had, and Olivia mischievously, with a suspicious twinkle in her eyes. Aunt Cassie was filled with an awful feeling that they were sharing some joke about the people at the ball, perhaps even about herself and Miss Peavey. Since Sabine had returned, she felt that Olivia had grown even more strange and rebellious; nevertheless, she admitted to herself that there was a distinction about them both. She preferred the quiet distinction of Olivia to the violence of the impression made by the glittering Sabine. The old lady sensed the distinction, but, belonging to a generation which lived upon emotion rather than analysis, she did not get to the root of it. She did not see that one felt at once on seeing Olivia, “Here is a lady!”—perhaps, in the true sense of the word, the only lady in the room. There was a gentleness about her and a softness and a proud sort of poise—all qualities of which Aunt Cassie approved; it was the air of mystery which upset the old lady. One never knew quite what Olivia was thinking. She was so gentle and soft-spoken. Sometimes of late, when pressing Olivia too hotly, Aunt Cassie, aware of rousing something indefinably perilous in the nature of the younger woman, drew back in alarm.
Rising stiffly, the old lady groaned a little and, moving down the stairs, said, “I must go, Olivia dear,” and, turning, “Miss Peavey will go with me.”
Miss Peavey would have stayed, because she was enjoying herself, looking down on all those young people, but she had obeyed the commands of Aunt Cassie for too long, and now she rose, complaining faintly, and made ready to leave.
Olivia urged them to stay, and Sabine, looking at the old lady out of green eyes that held a faint glitter of hatred, said abruptly: “I always thought you stayed until the bitter end, Aunt Cassie.”
A sigh answered her ... a sigh filled with implications regarding Aunt Cassie’s position as a lonely, ill, bereft, widowed creature for whom life was finished long ago. “I am not young any longer, Sabine,” she said. “And I feel that the old ought to give way to the young. There comes a time....”
Sabine gave an unearthly chuckle. “Ah,” she said, in her hard voice, “I haven’t begun to give up yet. I am still good for years.”
“You’re not a child any more, Sabine,” the old lady said sharply.
“No, certainly I’m not a child any more.” And the remark silenced Aunt Cassie, for it struck home at the memory of that wretched scene in which she had been put to rout so skilfully.
There was a great bustle about getting the two old ladies under way, a great search for cloaks and scarfs and impedimenta; but at last they went off, Aunt Cassie saying over her thin, high shoulder, “Will you say good-by to your dear father-in-law, Olivia? I suppose he’s playing bridge with Mrs. Soames.”
“Yes,” replied Olivia from the terrace, “he’s playing bridge with Mrs. Soames.”