She hesitated, one foot poised for the step below; then it fell
noiselessly, and she stood before me.

Anger died out under the level beauty of her gaze. I bowed, just as I
caught a trace of mockery in the mouth's scarlet curve, and bowed the
lower for it, too, straightening slowly to the dignity her mischievous
eyes seemed to flout; and her lips, too, defied me, all silently--nay,
in every limb and from every finger-tip she seemed to flout me, and the
slow, deep courtesy she made me was too slow and far too low, and her
recovery a marvel of plastic malice.

"My cousin Ormond?" she lisped;--"I am Dorothy Varick."

We measured each other for a moment in silence.

There was a trace of powder on her bright hair, like a mist of snow on
gold; her gown's yoke was torn, for all its richness, and a wisp of lace
in rags fell, clouding the delicate half-sleeve of China silk.

Her face, colored like palest ivory with rose, was no doll's face, for
all its symmetry and a forgotten patch to balance the dimple in her
rounded chin; it was even noble in a sense, and, if too chaste for
sensuous beauty, yet touched with a strange and pensive sweetness, like
'witched marble waking into flesh.

Suddenly a voice came from above: "Dorothy, come here!"

My cousin frowned, glanced at me, then laughed.

"Dorothy, I want my watch!" repeated the voice.