[CHAPTER III]
"Thank Heaven for New York once again, to be free, to breathe without the suffocation of those black things clinging about me, to get under the bracing air of a Northern climate once more. I wonder if you could command or persuade Carlita to leave off that dreadful placard of woe and let us have a little music and laughter once again?"
Jessica Chalmers threw herself into an arm-chair, crossed her knees upon each other, lifted her dainty foot to a graceful angle, and glanced up at her mother with a smile upon her lips that was really very pleasant to look at. She wore a negligee of pale blue and silver that became her wonderfully well, and there was an expression of fond admiration in the eyes of the mother that returned her smile.
"I don't think I would undertake it if I were you," she replied, thoughtfully. "After all, it can make very little difference to you. I am not anxious that Carlita should go much into society, as if she marries before she reaches the age of twenty-one I shall be docked just eight thousand a year. It isn't a fortune, I grant you, but it is a tidy little sum for pin money. I think you have been rather blind to the fact that Carlita is an exceptionally beautiful girl, and—and—"
She did not complete her sentence, and Jessica shrugged her shoulders indifferently.
"She is welcome to it," she answered, indolently. "You know that is one thing I never envied any one in my life. On the contrary, I think it must be rather a bore to be continually thinking of it and fearing to lose it. It is style that tells—chic—and Carlita hasn't an atom of that. Don't fear; I shall not be in the least jealous of your pretty protege. She and I are as far apart as the antipodes. She is the most utterly namby-pamby little nonentity that I have ever met."
Mrs. Chalmers turned away and walked toward the window, looking down into Fifth Avenue. She was silent for a moment, then, with her lips set curiously, answered slowly:
"If she is, it will be the first half-breed Mexican and Indian that I ever knew to be either a nonentity or namby-pambyish. You may be right, my dear Jessica, but you will pardon me, I know, if I say that I don't believe it."
A reply was prevented by the entrance of a maid bearing a card. She did not take it to the mistress of the house, but straight to Jessica, who looked at it, then sprang to her feet with a little exclamation of delight.