"Well, my dear," Mrs. Delancy commented drily, "if you'd only work for the far-off heathen, you'd find it much more satisfactory. You might not do any good, to be sure; but, anyhow, the bad results wouldn't affect you."
Cicily got to her feet, without making any reply, and went to the mirror at one end of the drawing-room. There, she busied herself after the feminine fashion with concealing the more apparent ravages made by her weeping. When she came back to face her aunt again, she was her usual charming self, save for a lack of color in her cheeks, and a portentous gravity in the drooping of the mouth.... Happily, she was not of the majority, whose noses bloom redly when watered with tears.
"And now," she said, desolately, "I've got to tell them!" She nodded toward the withdrawing-room, where the three candidates were waiting; and Mrs. Delancy understood.
"Why don't you write it to them?" she advised. "Whenever I have anything uncomfortable to tell anyone, I always write it. Then, I let your Uncle Jim read the reply.... It's so much more satisfactory that way, and, you know, he can say right out what I don't dare even to think."
But Cicily had courage and a conscience. She felt that she must not shirk the consequences to herself of her own indiscretion.
"No, I'll tell them," she declared resolutely; but her heart was sick within her at contemplation of the scene that waited.
Fortunately, perhaps, small time was given Cicily for dread anticipations. Hardly had she ceased speaking when the door into the withdrawing-room was cautiously opened, and the face of Mrs. McMahon was made visible to the two women who had faced about at sound of the knob turning. On perceiving that the room was empty save for the hostess and Mrs. Delancy, the Irishwoman threw the door wide, and came forward.
"Faith, it was so quiet I was sure they'd gone," she announced, with manifest pride in her deductive powers. There was, too, a general air of elation in the woman's manner of carriage that struck a chill to Cicily's heart. And the cold of it deepened as Mrs. Schmidt and Sadie Ferguson followed into the drawing-room, each evidently in a state of exaltation. The three ranged themselves in rude dignity before their hostess. Mrs. McMahon constituted herself the spokeswoman.
"Well," she inquired genially, "now that we're members of the club, what is it you'd be after having us to do?"