There Denis sat, as much at home in that icy room as a frog in water. To
be sure, he had offered to close the window, but Emily had declined,
preferring to wear her fur coat. His very voice had changed. All the
warmth had gone out of it, and his face wore a look she had not seen
before--a bored and disdainful look.
Yet she knew that he was really happy. All the talk about old friends
and old days, from which she was so entirely shut out, interested and
pleased him. She knew that he thought Cecil amusing and Cynthia a
beautiful and distinguished girl, and that he profoundly admired his
mother’s frosty calm. He was among his own people, and immeasurably glad
to be there.
And Emily herself was quite happy, quite content to sit in silence. She
had two supreme consolations. One was the look in Denis’s eyes each time
he turned toward her, and that was often. He wasn’t good at expressing
himself in words, but his glance was eloquent enough, and it spoke only
to her. His own people were entirely shut out from their secret
happiness. They might ignore her if they liked; she didn’t care in the
least. They were the real outsiders.
And the other compensation was a bit of paper tucked inside her
blouse--Denis’s note to his mother, which Mrs. Lanier was never to see.
Emily could well afford to be generous, for her triumph was complete and
magnificent.
MUNSEY’S
MAGAZINE
AUGUST, 1924
Vol. LXXXII NUMBER 3
Who Is This Impossible Person?