Joy did not need Mrs. Hewitt's equally calm "Good-evening, Gail.
Since when have you been deserving?" to know who had entered.
"Came to help you receive," stated Gail further, still indolently,
bringing herself further into the circle as she spoke, where Joy
could see her. "I brought a stray cousin along--sex, male. I knew you
wouldn't care--men are a godsend in New England towns. Here he is."
The cousin in question was evidently motioned to, for he appeared in
the range of Joy's vision with a charming certainty of welcome, and
the two merged themselves with the circle without more ceremony.
They had evidently made their way to the dressing-rooms before
coming to hunt for the family.
While Gail introduced her cousin a little more thoroughly, Joy gave
her a furtive, but still more thorough, inspection. She seemed
twenty-five or six. She was very slim, with lines like a boy more
than a girl; sallow, with large, steady blue-gray eyes and heavy
lashes, and lips that were so full that they were sullen-looking
when her face was still. She was not unusually pretty--indeed, by
Phyllis' rose-and-golden beauty she looked dingy--but she had
something arresting about her, and the carriage and manner of a girl
who is insolently certain that whatever she says or does is perfect
because she does it. She had on a straight blue chiffon frock, cut
unusually low: so low that it was continually slipping off one thin
shoulder.
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