Sibyl
followed her impulses with no reflection or question--it was like
a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback. She had not even
the instinct to stop and consider her effect. If she wished to make
a certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed
that she was believed.
"My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn't come
down," Mary said, when they were seated.
Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had
been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark
addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar
terms. It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the
foundation for an impression of sweetness.
"Just thought I'd fly in a minute," she said, continuing the cooing to
relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. "I thought I'd just behave
like REAL country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far
from down-town, aren't we? And it seemed such a LOVELY day! I wanted
to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that
afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here
before, I've had to depend on my husband's friends almost entirely,
and I really've known scarcely anybody.
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