Sublime

“She’s not a lunatic,” Daisy told her sister. “She’s a New Yorker.”

Kathleen had been right—whatever she chose, it wouldn’t be perfect. She would have to lose something. But no matter what else she gave up, this man was the thing she couldn’t lose. She burst into tears.

She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way, and upon the premise that she had no other duty than to be a graceful and accomplished accessory to that protection, since she belonged to a social and economic class to which protection was an almost sacred obligation.

“She and her sister are meeting with the countess.” “Ah, what a magnificent old dragon,” St. Vincent mused, drawing Lillian through the doorway.

Brett was damned good-looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that. She was built with curves like the hull of a racing yacht, and you missed none of it with that wool jersey.

was as if the young woman were turning down her lights to minimize any possibility of attraction or notice. She dressed soberly in white blouses and inexpensive