“Were you engaged to Delavan Eyre when you met him?”
“Oh, engaged!” returned the girl fretfully. “There was never more than a sort of understanding. A mariage de convenance on both sides, if it ever came off. I am fond of Del, too. But he was South, and the other came like a whirlwind, and I’m—I’m queer about some things,” she went on half shamefacedly. “I suppose I’m awfully susceptible to physical impressions. Are all girls that way? Or is that gross and—and underbred?”
“It’s part of us, I expect; but we’re not all so honest with ourselves. So you decided to throw over Mr. Eyre and marry your Briton.”
“Well—yes. The new British Ambassador, who arrives from Japan next week, is Carty’s uncle, and we were going to make him stage-manage the wedding, you see. A sort of officially certified elopement.”
“More advertisement!” said Miss Van Arsdale coldly. “Really, Miss Welland, if marriage seems to you nothing more than an opportunity to create a newspaper sensation I cannot congratulate you on your prospects.”
This time her tone stung. Io Welland’s eyes became sullen. But her voice was almost caressingly amiable as she said:
“Tastes differ. It is, I believe, possible to create a sensation in New York society without any newspaper publicity, and without at all meaning or wishing to. At least, it was, fifteen years ago; so I’m told.”
Camilla Van Arsdale’s face was white and lifeless and still, as she turned it toward the girl.
“You must have been a very precocious five-year-old,” she said steadily.
“All the Olneys are precocious. My mother was an Olney, a first cousin of Mrs. Willis Enderby, you know.”