She evidently was in a desperate hurry to return to
her guests, and yet she spoke slowly, with that delightful southern
deliberation that suits women with pretty mouths so well, and still as I
felt her eyes upon me I knew that to move her in any way against her own
will would be impossible, and that she could never love anything but
herself, and never would.
I did not look at Miss Lavinia in the brief moment before Sylvia entered,
for we were both too well bred to criticise a woman in her own house,
even with our eyes, which had they met would have been inevitable.
At first Sylvia only saw Miss Lavinia, and gathered her into her arms
spontaneously, as if she were the elder, as she was by far the bigger of
the two. Then seeing me, the cards not having been sent up, she
hesitated a moment, colouring shyly, as a girl of sixteen might, and then
straightway greeted me without embarrassment. As we laid aside our wraps
and seated ourselves in a sort of cosey corner nook deep with pillows,
and fur rugs nestling about the feet, I drew my first comfortable breath
since entering, and as Miss Lavinia naturally took the lead in the
conversation, giving her invitation for the next night, I had ample time
to study Sylvia. She was fine looking rather than handsome, a warm
brunette with copper glints threading her brown hair, thick curved
lashes, big brown eyes, a good straight nose, and a decidedly humorous,
but not small mouth, with lips that curled back from even teeth, while
her whole face was punctuated and made winningly feminine by a deep
dimple in the chin and a couple of vagrant ones that played about her
mouth corners when she spoke, as she always did, looking directly at one.
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