"And your daughter, my lady!" she added, with a mocking bow. "Bah! One would think that you were an angel! Don't forget that I know your life. Posing is not becoming to you. You are detaining me from my sweet friend. Au revoir!"
Ten minutes later she was tucking the robes around Carlita in the victoria with as much tenderness as a loving sister could have shown, and as they were driving through the park she carefully broached the subject upon which she had spoken to her mother.
"Look here, Miss Priscilla," she began, half laughing, in her boyish, fascinating way, "the time has come for you to get out of this Madonna life you are leading. I am going to take the reins in my hands. Do you know what I have done?"
"No! What?"
"I have made arrangements to have a great blowout at the house tonight, and you are to be the principal attraction."
"I?"
"Yes. Did it ever really come home to you with great force, Carlita, that you are a wonderfully beautiful girl?"
"Flatterer!"
"Not at all: it's the solemn truth. If you are really serious in desiring to work out the end you have in view about Olney, you must bring Leith Pierrepont to terms as quickly as you can. There is absolutely nothing that will do it like feeling that you need a protector. In spite of the crime that he has committed, he is really a great prude himself, or poses as one, which is quite the same thing. He will not like to have the woman whom he wishes to make his wife playing poker, and it will bring him around more quickly than anything. Come, now; will you join us tonight?"
It never occurred to Carlita to look into the logic of the speech. She was restless, nervous. She wanted to do something that would help her to forget for even such a short time, and Jessica's victory was infinitely easier than she had any idea it would be.