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a thin net veil of black lace and a dolman of black silk, which her brother Owen took from her.
Norah was with Callum, a straight, erect, smiling young Irishman, who looked as though he
might carve a notable career for himself. She wore a short, girlish dress that came to a little
below her shoe-tops, a pale-figured lavender and white silk, with a fluffy hoop-skirt of dainty
laced-edged ruffles, against which tiny bows of lavender stood out in odd places. There was a
great sash of lavender about her waist, and in her hair a rosette of the same color. She looked
exceedingly winsome--eager and bright-eyed.
But behind her was her sister in ravishing black satin, scaled as a fish with glistening crimsoned-
silver sequins, her round, smooth arms bare to the shoulders, her corsage cut as low in the front
and back as her daring, in relation to her sense of the proprieties, permitted. She was naturally
of exquisite figure, erect, full-breasted, with somewhat more than gently swelling hips, which,
nevertheless, melted into lovely, harmonious lines; and this low-cut corsage, receding back and
front into a deep V, above a short, gracefully draped overskirt of black tulle and silver tissue, set
her off to perfection. Her full, smooth, roundly modeled neck was enhanced in its cream-pink
whiteness by an inch-wide necklet of black jet cut in many faceted black squares. Her
complexion, naturally high in tone because of the pink of health, was enhanced by the tiniest
speck of black court-plaster laid upon her cheekbone; and her hair, heightened in its reddish-
gold by her dress, was fluffed loosely and adroitly about her eyes. The main mass of this
treasure was done in two loose braids caught up in a black spangled net at the back of her
neck; and her eyebrows had been emphasized by a pencil into something almost as significant
as her hair. She was, for the occasion, a little too emphatic, perhaps, and yet more because of
her burning vitality than of her costume. Art for her should have meant subduing her physical
and spiritual significance. Life for her meant emphasizing them.
"Lillian!" Anna nudged her sister-in-law. She was grieved to think that Aileen was wearing black
and looked so much better than either of them.
"I see," Lillian replied, in a subdued tone.
"So you're back again." She was addressing Aileen. "It's chilly out, isn't it?"
"I don't mind. Don't the rooms look lovely?"
She was gazing at the softly lighted chambers and the throng before her.
Norah began to babble to Anna. "You know, I just thought I never would get this old thing on."
She was speaking of her dress. "Aileen wouldn't help me--the mean thing!"
Aileen had swept on to Cowperwood and his mother, who was near him. She had removed from
her arm the black satin ribbon which held her train and kicked the skirts loose and free. Her
eyes gleamed almost pleadingly for all her hauteur, like a spirited collie's, and her even teeth
showed beautifully.
Cowperwood understood her precisely, as he did any fine, spirited animal.
"I can't tell you how nice you look," he whispered to her, familiarly, as though there was an old
understanding between them. "You're like fire and song."
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