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Updated: July 3, 2025
Then Isabel, greatly to her own surprise, dropped into a chair and burst into vehement tears. For the moment the child was hers, she suffered pangs of maternal bereavement that seemed to tear her breast and twist her heart. But there was a terrible silence in those two rooms, and in a few moments it chilled and calmed her. She looked up to see Anabel staring at her with blank expanded eyes.
The contrast between the two leading women, Patricia Devereux, who played the title part, and little Anabel Astor, who played the mercenary seductress, was a piquant source of speculation. As far as speech and manners went, Miss Devereux might have been a born citizen of the world Rose had been naturalized into by her marriage with Rodney; in fact, she reminded her rather strikingly of Harriet.
They didn't compete, that was it, Rose supposed, and they were both good enough cosmopolites to bridge across the antipodal distances between their respective traditions and environments. Patricia hated the tenor as bitterly as Anabel. And, in her own way, she was as pleasantly friendly to Rose.
In a word, if her work had no more emotional value than a mechanical drawing, it did have the precision of one. Rose mightn't have appreciated tins, had she not seen and admired Miss Devereux from the front in a production she and Rodney had been two or three times to see the season before. Little Anabel Astor presented as striking a contrast to all this as it would be possible to imagine.
Anabel Price was her name, and they called her "Billy"; she was a tall and splendidly formed creature, and he learned in due time that she was a famous athlete. She must have divined that he would feel a little lost in this crowd of intimates, and set to work to make him feel at home an attempt in which she was not altogether successful.
Anabel Colton, Dolly Boutts, and Serena Wheaton, after half a day's telephoning, decided to "wear their necks," and their hostess agreed to keep them in countenance. Every team in Rosewater was bespoken for the distinguished occasion, and the reports of the weather bureau were consulted daily. But the rains held off and the night of the party was brilliant with starlight, and not too cold.
Her first impulse was to run. She felt that rather would she hear of Gwynne's death than face Anabel in her maternal agony. But she set her teeth and went on, far more frightened than sympathetic. The people that overflowed the hall and parlor were all crying, but nodded to her, and Tom Colton, haggard and white, appeared at the head of the stair and beckoned.
She smiled as she recalled that Anabel, who had pretty golden hair, had washed it with lye to acquire a reddish tinge, and been forced to retire for a month; and a semi-tragic experience of her own smothered from crown to toe in a blanket taking a hot-air bath for the benefit of her complexion, the spirit lamp, in a wash-basin under the chair, exploded, and there was one interminable moment of panic, and several days of discomfort.
We are card mad, the whole bunch of us, old and young, women and girls. Mrs. Leslie and Anabel Colton are about the only exceptions, at least in our set. But I fancy the whole town has got it. We play morning, noon, and night literally. Those who have no servants and that question gets worse instead of better don't make their beds for days, and their husbands get dinner at any old hour.
Still, dear Anabel, if you think it improper for me to call alone on a bachelor cousin, I will pick up somebody on my way out." "Do, that's a dear. And I shall tell Mrs. Haight that old Mac always goes shooting with you. I am sure that he does. Good-bye. I'll see about the hall this afternoon."
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