Kara was extending her hands toward the little girl with more animation and pleasure than Tory had seen her reveal since her accident.
And actually, with a faint shudder, Lucy was drawing away.
An impulse to seize the little girl by the shoulders and forcibly thrust her out of the evergreen cabin assailed Tory.
She moved forward. In the meantime Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, becoming aware of Lucy’s behavior, were endeavoring to conceal her rudeness.
“Kara, Lucy has been insisting each day that we bring her to see you. We did not know at first that you had gone from the Gray House. Afterwards Mr. Hammond was away for a short time and we were waiting for him,” Mrs. Hammond remarked, speaking hurriedly but with extreme graciousness.
She was a pretty, exquisitely dressed woman of about thirty years with light brown hair and eyes. She appeared an agreeable society woman but without any especial force of character. Evidently if she cared a great deal for Lucy, the little girl in time would have small difficulty in having her own way.
This would not be equally true with Mr. Hammond.
At present he was divided by annoyance with his adopted daughter and a kind of puzzled curiosity.
He was staring about the gay room filled with girls and then at the figure in the wheeled chair.
Kara appeared to be interested in no one save Lucy.