"Well,--I retain self-possession," said Fleda. "I cannot tell about the strength of head of other people."
"You wretched little creature!--Fleda, don't you admire my hair?--it's new style, my dear,--just come out,--the Delancys brought it out with them--Eloise Delancy taught it us--isn't it graceful? Nobody in New York has it yet, except the Delancys and we."
"How do you know but they have taught somebody else?" said Fleda.
"I won't talk to you!--Don't you like it?"
"I am not sure that I do not like you in your ordinary way better."
Constance made a gesture of impatience, and then pulled Fleda after her into the drawing-rooms.
"Come in here--I won't waste the elegancies of my toilet upon your dull perceptions--come here and let me shew you some flowers--aren't those lovely? This bunch came to-day, 'for Miss Evelyn,' so Florence will have it it is hers, and it's very mean of her, for I am perfectly certain it is mine--it's come from somebody who wasn't enlightened on the subject of my family circle and has innocently imagined that two Miss Evelyns could not belong to the same one! I know the floral representatives of all Florence's dear friends and admirers, and this isn't from any of them--I have been distractedly endeavouring all day to find who it came from, for if I don't I can't take the least comfort in it."
"But you might enjoy the flowers for their own sake, I should think," said Fleda, breathing the sweetness of myrtle and heliotrope.
"No I can't, for I have all the time the association of some horrid creature they might have come from, you know; but it will do just as well to humbug people--I shall make Cornelia Schenck believe that this came from my dear Mr. Carleton!"
"No you won't, Constance," said Fleda gently.