“Just so.”
My sister eyed me a little strangely.
“You don’t like that?” she asked.
“Do you?” I retorted.
She shrugged her shoulders and gave a little laugh. “Of course it would be still nicer,” she mocked lightly, “if he adored her as well. But what will you? Such is life?”
I felt how hopeless it was. I had a foretaste of how my sympathy for Jane was to isolate me.
“She admires you any way extravagantly,” I persisted with petulance. Claire only laughed.
“I should think she would do everything extravagantly,” was her reply as she floated away.
“Do be a little kind to the child,” I cried out after her, and she just nodded at me over her shoulder. How charming her face was seen thus, framed in her dark drooping hat and black furs, the slender glowing olive oval, the sombre eyes, the lovely teeth, how charming, how teasing, how elusive; and her slim figure with its trailing draperies, how easily it slipped away from all effort, all responsibility.
Jane was gone when I re-entered the drawing room. I gathered that she had made a favourable impression. Aunts and uncles and cousins were taking leave of my mother with phrases of congratulation.