"Margaret!" she called. "Margaret, I must speak to you. Please come to my room. It is something urgent. Come at once."
CHAPTER II
RECORDING A SISTERLY EFFORT TO LET IN LIGHT
When Margaret Smyrthwaite entered her sister's bedchamber she brought the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop along with her. Under the elder and sterner reign scent-sprays and scent-caskets were unknown at the Tower House, Montagu Smyrthwaite holding such adjuncts to the feminine toilet in hardly less abhorrence than powder or paint itself. A modest whiff of aromatic vinegar or of eau-de-Cologne touched the high-water mark of permitted indulgence. But in the use of perfumes, as in other matters, Margaret—so Mrs. Isherwood put it—"had broke out sadly since the poor old gentleman went." The intellectual streak common to the Smyrthwaite family had from the first been absent in the young lady's composition; while the morbid streak, also common in the family, was now cauterized, if not actually eliminated, by the sunshine of her seven thousand a year. A North-country grit, a rather foxy astuteness and a toughness of fiber—also inherited—remained, however, very much to the fore in her, with the result that she would travel—was, indeed, already traveling—the grand trunk road of modern life without hesitation, or apology, or any of those anxious questionings of why, wherefrom, and whither which beset persons of nobler spiritual caliber.
In the past few months she had shed the last uncertainties of girlhood. She had filled out and was in act of blossoming into that which gentlemen of the Challoner order, in moments of expansion, not without a cocking of the eye and moistening of the lip, are tempted to describe as a "d—d fine woman." Now the light of the candle she carried showed the rounded smoothness of her handsome neck and arms, through the transparent yoke and sleeves of her black evening blouse, touched the folds and curls of bright auburn hair upon her forehead, and brought the hard bright blue of her eyes into conspicuous evidence. A deficiency of eyelash and eyebrow caused her permanent vexation. This defect she intended to remedy—some day. Not just at present, however, as both Joanna and Isherwood were too loyally wedded to the aromatic vinegar and eau-de-Cologne régime for such facial reconstructions to pass without prejudiced and aggravating comment.
Advancing up the room, all of a piece and somewhat solid in tread, she offered a notable contrast to Joanna, who awaited her palpitating and angular, ravaged by agonies and aspirations, indignantly trembling within the sagged knife-pleatings of her soiled white négligé. The rough copy and édition de luxe, as Adrian had dubbed them, just then very forcibly presented their likeness and unlikeness; yet, possibly, to a discerning eye, the rough copy, though superficially so conspicuously lacking in charm, might commend itself as the essentially nobler of these two human documents.
"What is the matter, Joanna?" the édition de luxe inquired. "Why couldn't you send Isherwood to say you wanted to speak to me? It's fortunate Marion's and my nerves are steady, for your calling out gave us both an awful start."
"I did listen," the other returned, in a breathlessness of strong emotion. "I was sitting at the window in the dark when you began talking. At first I paid no heed; but, as your conversation went on, I found it bore reference to matters which you are keeping from me and with which I ought to be acquainted. I found it concerned me—myself. I offer no apology. I acted in self-protection. I listened deliberately."
Margaret laid the magazines and illustrated fashion papers, she carried under her arm, upon the slab of the open bureau. She set down her flat candlestick beside them, thus creating a triad of lighted candles—unlucky omen!
"Then, Nannie," she said, coolly, "you did something which was not at all nice."