Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/73

 been good about it, haven't I, ever since Norman took me to India on our wedding trip, and introduced me to his fascinating cousin?"

"Thank you for the adjective!"

"You needn't. You know everybody calls you fascinating. It's the word that describes you best, I think. I told Norman so the first day I met you."

Thank you again." Teresina smiled affectionately at her cousin's wife, whom she liked, though she was not drawn to her as to a congenial spirit.

Maud had the soft charm of many Southern women. She was dark and thin, but not angular, and had pleasant lazy ways which made people feel comfortably restful in her society. No woman in the county dressed more beautifully than she. Her face, pearly pale with the powder which Southern women love, looked extraordinarily young, almost childish, though her curly hair was as white as if it, too, were powdered. She was very proud of that hair of hers, and also of her remarkably long eyelashes, which she used with great effect. Maud had several qualities shared with children and monkeys, one of which was an inordinate but perfectly innocent curiosity; and she caressed or flattered people into doing or saying what she wanted them to do or say. Terry, however, was rather harder to manage in this respect than most of Maud's friends, it appeared; perhaps because she had all her life been used to flattery, or, at least, to receiving compliments.