"Here you are! Bright and late as usual!"
In her fluted voice, with her agreeable smile, Mrs. Austen greeted him.
The lady was attired in a manner that left her glitteringly and
splendidly bare. With her, in the cluttered drawing-room, were Margaret,
Kate Schermerhorn, Poppet Bleecker, Verelst, Cantillon and Ogston.
"Will you take my daughter out?" Mrs. Austen, with that smile,
continued. "Oh!" she interrupted herself to remark. "You have not
congratulated Mr. Cantillon. Has no little bird told you? It's this dear
child Kate. Just now--don't you think?--engagements, like lilacs, are in
the air." She turned to Verelst. "Grey deceiver!"
Verelst crooked his arm. "However much I tried to deceive, I got grey
before I could."
"What are you laughing at?" Mrs. Austen with her tireless smile enquired
of Paliser, who, after speaking to the girls, had said something to
Cantillon.
"Somersaults being a specialty of his, I was telling him that now is the
time for a triple one."
Paliser turned to Margaret. She had said nothing. She was very pale.
Mute, white, blonde, she was a vision.