gers that it amounted to an abnormality.
“Ow-een, have I not tell you that you must say the friendly ‘Irma’ to me, not the cold ‘princess’? Ah. bad boy, how fast you forget a woman’s words! It is doleful, is it not. chère Aunt Sophie?”
I jerked my eyes away from that strange hand with an effort, and met her keen glance. I knew immediately that she had seen and understood my absorption. She withdrew the hand with a slow, caressing movement, half smiling at me meantime with an odd significance that made me hot all over for some reason. First of all, I was displeased at her calling me aunt; even for a woman of her undeniable charm and aristocracy, it was an unwarrantable liberty. And then her expression when she smiled! I could not explain why, but it was as if she had suddenly taken me into her confidence in some secret matter in which she expected my tacit acquiescence and approval.
I could not reply to her implied expectancy of an affirmative answer; my blood must have flushed my face noticeably, for she all at once turned her gaze from me with a glitter of those hazel eyes, which now seemed almost green as she leaned away from her sables and out into the sunlight. Her lips parted, ever so little, disclosing sharp white teeth, beautifully regular. I suppose most people would have said that her smile was charming, but I know that when she smiled at me I felt only a dreadful sinking feeling, a kind of growing terror, blind terror at I knew not what. I leaned back in the automobile with a sickness in my heart that suddenly took all the beauty out of that delightful day.
“I could not resist to look at the new home, Ow-een,” purred the princess, drawing her furs about her sinuous body with the hand that she now kept hidden beneath those luxurious folds. “I have already send the furnitures, so that I may live here, with my so-dear friends close by—soon—soon.”
How those words lingered on her red, red lips! An involuntary shudder gripped me and made me tremble. I felt premonitions of evil; shook them off angrily; felt them return stronger than before at the princess’ little side glance at me, a glance half amused, wholly tolerant, as of one who knew her innate powers but disdained to use them upon so entirely insignificant an individual. She moistened her full crimson lips with a pointed little tongue and addressed herself again to Owen.
“When I make the house-warm, my Ow-een, you will be my guest? And the beautiful Mrs. Differdale? And of course, the chère Aunt Sophie.”
Delicate raillery sounded in her well-modulated voice. She sank back languidly into the brocaded interior of her car, nodded her head like a queen dismissing her court, and was whirled away.
Owen drew a deep breath and turned to me, eyes sparkling.
“Some princess, eh. Aunt Sophie? The Princess Irma Andreyevna Tchernova. Isn’t she a wonder? Won’t it wake things up to have her in the neighborhood? She and Portia ought to be great friends, don’t you think? Two such brilliant women,” he went on fatuously.
I was furious. I suppose I showed it in my voice and manner. I remarked coldly that the princess had not impressed me especially as being anything but a finished coquette. Of course I should not have said that; men are proverbially obtuse where pretty women are concerned, and Owen was no exception to the rule.
“Why, Aunt Sophie!” he gasped, evidently astonished at my bitter attack upon the Princess Tchernova.
