She was tall, and strongly, beautifully built; around her small head
was bound a smooth braid of dark hair. She walked with a long, free
step and held her head high. As she came towards them, the moonlight
full on her dark, proud, perfect face, she might have been the
youthful Diana.
But it was no antique spirit which looked out of those frank, fearless
eyes, and it was a very modern and colloquially American greeting
which she now gave to the astonished young people. "Well, Sylvia,
don't you know your own sister?" and "Hello there, Arnold."
"Why, Judith _Marshall_!" cried Sylvia, falling upon her breathlessly.
"However in the world did you get _here_!"
Arnold said nothing. He had fallen back a step and now looked at the
new-comer with a fixed, dazzled gaze.
CHAPTER XXIV
ANOTHER BRAND OF MODERN TALK
"Where's Judith?" said Arnold for sole greeting, as he saw Morrison at
the piano and Sylvia sitting near it, cool and clear in a lacy white
dress. Morrison lifted long fingers from the keys and said gravely,
"She came through a moment ago, saying, '_Where's_ Arnold?' and went
out through that door." His fingers dropped and Chopin's voice once
more rose plaintively.
The sound of Arnold's precipitate rush across the room and out of the
door was followed by a tinkle of laughter from Sylvia. Morrison looked
around at her over his shoulder, with a flashing smile of mutual
understanding, but he finished the prelude before he spoke.
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