She paused a moment on the threshold before she was noticed. Her
mother was eagerly gossiping with two or three fashionable
women about a scandal that she hoped might cause her own family's
short-comings to be forgotten in part. Miss Burton was telling a
story in her own inimitable style, and ripples of smiles and laughter
eddied from her constantly. Stanton's and Van Berg's faces were
aglow with pleasure, and it was plain the speaker absorbed all
their thoughts.
"In the same way he will forget me, after I am dead," said the
unhappy girl to herself, and the thought sent a colder chill to
her heart, and a deeper pallor to her face.
Her gaze seemed to draw his, for he looked up suddenly. On
recognizing her his first impulse was to coldly avert his eyes,
but in a second her unusual appearance riveted his attention. She
saw the impulse, however, and would not look towards him again. She
entered as quietly and as unexpectedly as a ghost, and the people
seemed as much surprised and perplexed as if she were a ghost.
She took a seat somewhat apart from all others, and apparently
commenced reading. She was not so far away but that Van Berg could
decipher the title, "Misjudged," and having made out the significant
word, its letters grew luminous like the diamonds in her hair.
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