“It’s Nancy Carey, Glen, honey, and another old friend of yours! They’ve been here half an hour, and I gave them tea, and I was so anxious for fear you might be delayed at the mill——”
Nancy Carey, lovely and languid in the doctor’s shabby armchair, held up a pale hand. “Hello, Glen! Here’s somebody who was crazy to see you!” She indicated the other girl who jumped to her feet and came laughing to meet the mistress of the house.
“Well, look what spring has brought you!” Her voice was high and sharp, and her whole look was of sharpness—her very bright eyes with their darkened lashes, and brows plucked to a tiny black line, the almost mauve of her cheeks and her violent cerise mouth. “Know who I am?”
Glen shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t remember—” she began uncomfortably.
“Don’t remember the brat from the Bella Vista who was the solitary guest at your valentine party? I’m Janice Jennings. Greetings and hail! At the Bella Vista again, with my grandmother.”
“Oh....” Glen was a little dazed. She presented Luke to the two girls, hastily, fearful lest he should stride out in the blackness of his mood and have still further reason for resentment toward her.
Nancy Carey looked up at Luke Manders with her liquid hazel gaze and her soft little mouth smiling widely. “I’ve met you before,” she said calmly.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, yes, I have ... right here, just after Glen’s father died!” She waited in soft expectancy for his corroboration, and when it did not come she expelled a quick sigh. “Well, I’ve met you now, anyway.”
Miss Ada was perturbed. The affair had started so beautifully—two callers for Glen at once, and one of them a Carey—and now the young savage had to walk into the scene, like—as her own dear father would have said—a bull in a china shop. If he must be there and some one must talk to him, let it be the Northern girl: Miss Ada interposed herself swiftly between Nancy and the intruder and talked brightly to her kinswoman.