The days went on, and once more George had the uncanny experience of a chat with Jenny. Alice had been looking over some of her grandmother’s belongings, and when he called, came down to him with a necklace of rhinestones dangling and sliding through her fingers.
“See,” she accosted him, in the buoyant manner he remembered only too vividly, “is n’t this gay? I should wear it, only I’m in her clothes, and she won’t wear anything but poky black.”
Carroll tried to steady his nerves against the sudden shock.
“Of course you wear black, Alice,” he said; “it is only six months since your grandmother died.”
She made him a merry, mocking grimace.
“Now don’t pretend you don’t know I’m Jenny,” she retorted. “I saw you knew me the minute you heard me speak. Alice! Pooh! She’d have come into the room this way.”
She darted to the door and turned back, to advance with her face pulled down and her eyelids dropped.
“How do you do, dear?” she greeted him, with a burlesque of Alice’s manner so droll that he laughed in spite of himself.
Jenny herself burst into a shout of merriment and whirled about in a pirouette, swinging the sparkling chain around her head.