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Marshall-Smith sat down at once, opening her dark-purple parasol, the tense silk of which was changed by the hot Southern sun into an iridescent bubble. "We will wait here till the steward gets our trunks out," she announced." It will be amusing to watch the people."
"Oh, I'm sure I hope they'll manage!" she said earnestly. "Of course! Of course!" agreed Mrs. Marshall-Smith. "Who doesn't hope so?" She paused, her loquacity run desperately thin. There was the sound of a car, driving up to the front door. Sylvia rose in apprehension. Her aunt motioned a reassurance. "I told Tojiko to tell every one that we are not in to anybody."
Her husband's sister was as little proof against it as her husband. As it continued, Mrs. Marshall-Smith went through the manoeuvers which in a less perfectly bred person would have been fidgeting.... No one paid any attention to Sylvia, who sat confronting herself in a long mirror and despising every garment she wore. The next day was to have been given up to really improving pursuits.
Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in "So you're still in the 1830 Romantische Schule period, are you, Reinhardt?" He went on to Mrs. Marshall-Smith: "But there is something in that sort of talk.
Marshall-Smith had stopped to listen in the midst of the exhausting toil of telling Hélène which dresses to pack and which to leave hanging in the Lydford house. She now resumed her labors unflaggingly, waving away to the closet a mauve satin, and beckoning into a trunk a favorite black-and-white chiffon. To Sylvia she said, "Now I know exactly how a balloon feels when it is pricked."
The method was effective now. Molly laughed. Sylvia even made shift to laugh; and Helene was summoned to put on the trim shirt-waist, the short cloth skirt and close hat which Mrs. Marshall-Smith selected with care and the history of which she detailed at length, so copiously that there was no opportunity to speak of anything less innocuous.
Marshall-Smith stirred herself with the effect of a splendid ship going into action with all flags flying. "Sylvia dear," she said, "this rain tonight makes me think of a new plan. It will very likely rain for a week or more now. Paris is abominable in the rain. What do you say to a change?
She hid her face against the soft, perfumed laces and silk, and heard from beneath them the painful throb of a quickly beating heart. Mrs. Marshall-Smith held her niece for a long moment and then turned the quivering little face up to her own grave eyes, in which Sylvia, for all her inexperience, read a real suffering.
"I've known a few Caucasians too ...," Mrs. Marshall-Smith contributed a barbed point of malice to the talk. "Oh, I mean Turk as a generic term."
Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh, what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. "You! with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylvia stood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside the river," she said, reaching for her parasol.
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