The girl’s lips grew pale, and when she replied, she trembled with the awful consciousness of lying to her mother.
“I cannot find them. I have looked everywhere.”
The mother frowned. “Bring me an ash tray, Irene, and do not lie to me. They are in the garden.” She crushed out the ember of her cigarette. “That man is a fool. He has offended a dozen important men after I took the trouble to invite them here. God knows, I didn’t want them!”
While she was speaking, the sound of footsteps arose in the open gallery that ran along the far side of the drawing-room, and two figures, silhouetted against the smoky, setting sun, appeared at the windows moving toward the doorway. They were the missing Lily and the Governor. He followed her at a little distance as though they had been quarreling and she had forbidden him to address her. At the sight of them, Irene moved toward the door, but her mother checked her escape.
“Irene! Where are you going now? What are you afraid of? If this behavior does not stop, I shall forbid you to go to mass. You are already too pious for any good on this earth.”
The frightened girl returned silently and sat down with her usual air of submission on the sofa that stood in the shadows by a mantelpiece which supported a painting of Venice, flamboyant and glowing, executed by the hand of Turner. At the sound of Lily’s voice, she shrank back among the cushions as if to hide herself. There was in the voice nothing to terrify her. On the contrary it was a voice, low and warm, indolent and ingratiating—a voice full of charm, one which inspired affection.
Lily was taller than her sister and two years older; yet there was an enormous difference between them which had to do less with age than with manner. There was about Irene something childish and undeveloped. Lily was a woman, a young woman, to be sure, tall and lovely. Her hair was the color of honey. It held bright copper lights; and she wore it, in the fashion of Irene, low on a lovely neck that carried a warning of wilfulness. Her skin was the transparent sort which artists love for its green lights, and her eyes were of a shade of violet which in some lights appeared a clear blue. Her arms were laden with irises, azure and pale yellow, which she had plucked on her way from the old well. She too wore a frock of muslin with a girdle of radiant blue. As she entered, she laid the flowers gently among the crystal and silver bibelots of a rosewood table and rang for Sarah, the mulatto wife of Hennery, guardian of the wrought iron gates.
The Governor followed her, a tall man of perhaps forty, strongly built with a fine chest and broad shoulders. His hair was black and vigorous and he wore it cropped close to a well-shaped head. He had the drooping mustaches of the period. His was a figure which commands the attention of mobs. His manner, when he was not too pompous or condescending, was charming. People said there was no reason why he should not one day be president. He was shrewd in the way of politicians, too shrewd perhaps ever to be anything but one who made other men presidents.
He was angry now with a primitive, boiling anger which threatened to burst the bonds of his restraint. His breath came huskily. It was the anger of a man accustomed to dominate, who has encountered suddenly some one who cares not a fig for his powers.
“Madame,” he said, “your daughter has refused to marry me.”