Doris held herself in with difficulty. Her own sense said exactly the opposite. She decided that it was not necessary to name the possibility of their meeting in the mountains.
[CHAPTER XV]
R. R. Maurice
"GOOD morning, Mrs. Brutt. I'm going to breakfast. Are you better?"
Doris's face, dimpled and radiant, made its appearance, answering a fretful "Entrez."
"Shut the door, pray. Such a draught. I can't go down this morning— I am feeling so ill. It is the fault of the food, I am sure. And the heat yesterday was fearful—positively fearful."
The elder lady was still in bed, forgetting for once to pose picturesquely. Doris could not help thinking how abnormally plain she was, when deprived of all adventitious aids. Flat and rumpled hair is not becoming; and few faces fail to look plain in a mood of annoyed self-pity. Mrs. Brutt was not well; and, like many, people, when she was bodily out of sorts, she was sure to be also mentally out of sorts—in other words, out of temper.
"You needn't be in such a desperate hurry," she complained as the girl made a move. "You are always wanting to rush away. I must speak first about my breakfast. It is quite unbearable, having no bells—no way to get hold of anybody. I never expected to find this sort of thing, when I settled to come up into the mountains."
She had made the same remark at least twenty times already.
"If I had imagined the wretched accommodation, nothing would have induced me to bind myself to stay. Six weeks of it! I shall be dead before the end."