Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/104

 world chose to view them. Not that in any way they were fêted or acclaimed. As far as the vast majority of their fellow-creatures were concerned they were not people to look at twice. But here and there a glance of recognition or curiosity would greet them, winged by a smile, now of mere interest, now of an irony faintly perceptible.

Life had been very kind to Cousin Marjorie and Cousin Blanche, yet they did not look conspicuously happy. With both hands it had lavished upon them its material best, but the gifts of fortune were taken as a matter of mere personal right. Providence owed it to the order of things they stood for. Far from being grateful, they were a little bored by its attentions. Moreover, these young women had not learned to regard people to whom the fairies had been less kind with either insight or sympathy. Their judgments were objective, therefore they were a little hard, a little lacking in tolerance.

II

"The stage!" said Marjorie with a straight-lipped smile, a rather famous part of her importance.

"You think so?" said Blanche sleepily. But she was not at all sleepy, else she would not have been able to handle the Tiger, a recent purchase, in the way she was doing at the moment.

"No mistaking it, my dear."

"Good-looking, though," lisped the somnolent Blanche, giving the Tiger a very shrewd kick with a roweled heel. "Reminds me of some one."

The Tiger, worried by a bit that he didn't like, and