Even as she spoke the drawing-room door opened, and a tall, hard-featured, haughty-looking, elderly lady entered, leaning on the arm of a small, wiry girl with little keen gray eyes, and hair which her friends called auburn, but which was red, and very white teeth, displayed by a constant, unvarying smile. A smiling face ought to be a pleasant one, but this freckled one was not. There was a cringing, fawning, servility about her which made most people, except those fond of flattery and adulation, distrust her, and which fairly sickened Georgia.
"Speak of the—," began Henry, sinking his voice pianissimo, and concluding the sentence to himself.
Georgia arose, and almost timidly approached them, and inquired of the elder lady if she felt better. Mrs. Wildair opened her eyes and favored her with a stare that was downright insolent; and then, before her slow reply was formed, Miss Freddy Richmond took it upon herself to answer, with a fawning smile:
"Thank you, yes—quite recovered. A night's rest will perfectly restore her."
Georgia turned her flashing eyes down on the smiling owner of the ferret optics and red hair, and a hot "I did not address myself to you—speak when you are spoken to," leaped to her tongue; but Georgia was learning to restrain herself since her marriage, and so she only bit her lip till the blood started, at the open slight.
"Can we not get on, Fredrica?" said Mrs. Wildair, impatiently.
Georgia was standing before them, and now Miss Freddy, with her silkiest smile, put out her hand—a limp, moist, sallow little member—and gave her a slight push saying:
"Will you be kind enough, Georgia" (she had called her by her Christian name from the first, as if she had been a maid-of-all-work), "and let us pass. I see Mrs. Colonel Gleason over there, and Mrs. Wildair wants to join her."
Richmond, standing over Miss Harper, who was deafening the company with one of those dreadful overtures from "Il Trovatore," had not witnessed this little scene. Indeed, had he, it is probable he would have observed nothing wrong about it; but the gesture, the tone, and the insolent look—half supercilious, half contemptuous—that accompanied it, sent a shock through Miss Arlingford, brought a flush to her brother's cheek, and even made Master Henry mutter that it was a "regular jolly shame."
They brushed past Georgia as if she had been the housemaid, and she was left standing there before those who had witnessed the direct insult. Her head was throbbing, her face crimson, and her breath came so quick and stifled that she laid her hand on her chest, feeling as though she should suffocate. She forgot the curious eyes bent upon her—some in compassion, some in gratified malice—she forgot everything but the insult offered her by the worm she despised. With one hand resting on the table to steady herself, for her brain was whirling, and with the other pressed hard on her bosom, she stood where they had left her, until Miss Arlingford arose, and taking her arm, said, kindly: