She saw the two men, and sat leaning on her sunshade, a smile on her lips, waiting--but without a glance toward the piazza and its expectant crowd:--a slender woman, gowned in white, with a great black hat topping auburn hair and shading a face that was almost flawless in its proud, cold beauty.
"My dear Stephanie, I am _glad_ to see you!" said Pendleton.
"Do you mean it, Montague?" she asked, giving him her hand with a dazzling smile that softened her whole countenance and made it very tender.
"We do, indeed!" said Burgoyne, bowing over her other hand--while Pendleton took her sunshade.
There was a momentary pause. She looked from one to the other a bit questioningly--smiled again--and with a hand in each of theirs stepped lightly from the carriage.
"We have a table just around the corner--shall we go to it?" Pendleton suggested.
She shot him a glance from under her half-closed lids--a glance of appreciation and gratitude.
"If you don't mind," she replied--"I'm a bit afraid of these people."
They went slowly down the piazza; and the crowd, which had been dumb with amazement or curiosity or looking, suddenly began to talk like mad, and to occupy themselves with the tea things or with one another.
Mrs. Lorraine saw--and with a haughtily amused smile, with never a glance at any of them, with her head held high and her body turned a trifle so as to converse with Pendleton, she threaded her way between chairs and tables and people to the place reserved.
"Did you ever behold such brazenness!" exclaimed Mrs. Postlewaite when Mrs. Lorraine had passed.
"The shameless woman!" Mrs. Pearce echoed.
"It is a disgrace to the Club!" pronounced Mrs. Busbee.
"It is a disgrace to society!" declared Mrs. Porterfield. "What shall we do to manifest our disgust and disapproval?"
"Leave at once--it is positively contaminating to be near her," decided Mrs. Postlewaite.
And they went straightway--summoning their cars with much to-do and ostentatious show.
"Play! Play! be absorbed in the game--don't let on you've seen her!" whispered young Mrs. Carstairs, as Mrs. Lorraine drew near....
"I didn't know what to do--I was facing her," said her partner, Mrs. Chilten.
"It didn't matter greatly what you did," smiled Mrs. Burleston. "She didn't look at any one--she ignored us all."