Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/18

 manner of doing things effortlessly, with a great quietness, and yet, after one came to know her, one felt that she missed little which took place within sight or hearing—not only the obvious things which any stupid person might have noticed, but the subtle, indefinite currents which passed from one person to another. She possessed, it seemed, a marvelous gift for smoothing out troubles. A security, of the sort which often marks those who suffer from a too great awareness, enveloped and preceded her, turning to calm all the troubled world about her. Yet she was disturbing, too, in an odd, indefinable way. There was always a remoteness and a mystery, a sense almost of the fey. It was only after one had known her for a long time, enveloped in the quietness of her pleasant presence, that a faint sense of uneasiness was born. It would occur to you, with the surprise almost of a shock, that the woman you saw before you, the woman who was so gentle and serene, was not Olivia Pentland at all, but a kind of layclay [sic] figure which concealed, far beneath the veneer of charm, a woman you did not know at all, who was remote and sad and perhaps lonely. In the end, she disturbed the person of discernment far more profoundly than the glittering, disagreeable Sabine Callendar.

In the midst of the noise and confusion of the ball, she had been moving about, now in this big room, now in that one, talking quietly to her guests, watching them, seeing that all went well; and, like all the others, she was fascinated at the spectacle of Sabine's rebellion and triumph, perhaps even a little amused at the childishness of such defiance in a woman of forty-six who was clever, independent and even distinguished, who need not have troubled to flaunt her success.

Watching Sabine, whom she knew intimately enough, she had guessed that underneath the shell made so superbly by hairdresser, couturier and jeweler there lay hidden an awkward, red-haired little girl who was having her revenge now,