Page:Vance--The trey o hearts.djvu/29

Rh uncontrollable emotion. His voice rang with exultation when next he spoke:

"Send my daughter Judith here!"

The servant disappeared, and two minutes later a young woman in street dress was admitted to the chamber of the shadows. She went directly to her father, bent over and touched her lips to his forehead.

He did not speak, but her quick ears caught the rustle of the paper crushed anew in his grasp, and she experienced an intuition of something momentous impending.

"You sent for me, father?"

He replied brusquely: "Sit down."

She found a chair and settled herself in it. "Now turn the light upon your face."

The red glow lighted up a face of exquisite beauty, an eager, passionate face mirroring the spirit of quenchless youth, and her father nodded slightly as if with satisfaction.

"Judith—tell me—what day is this?"

"My birthday. I am twenty-one."

"And your sister's birthday? Rose, too, is twenty-one."

A slight frown clouded Judith's face; but she replied quietly: "Yes."

"You could have forgotten that," the old man pursued almost mockingly. "Do you dislike your twin-sister so intensely?"