“Is that so?” retorted Ralph. “Then it’s more than the work you do will ever make you.”
After that, no more words passed between them. With chill dignity, for all the scantness of her faded skirts, Jacqueline descended from the car at the foot of Longmeadow Street.
“I’ll be at the Post Office at five o’clock,” she said, in the tone in which haughty society ladies are supposed to say: “Home, James!”
“You’d better be, for I shan’t wait for you,” Ralph called back, before he rattled away in a cloud of dust.
Well, maybe he’d behave a little more respectfully by and bye, Jacqueline told herself darkly, as she trudged up the street. When he saw her hiring two nurses—and having huge baskets of grapes sent up from Boston for Grandma—and a lovely silk dressing-gown—and a wheelchair—and a down coverlet—and a darling invalid’s table, with egg-shell china!
Once more Jacqueline lost herself in gorgeous dreams of what she was going to do—dreams that blew up like a burst balloon, as she found herself actually within sight of the Gildersleeve place. She halted short. The house looked so big, above its surrounding elms, and she felt so little, all at once, in Caroline’s skimpy gingham. Perhaps she had better not go in at the front gate. Perhaps she had better slip in through the gap in the hedge, as she had done that earlier time. Perhaps by great good luck she might find Caroline in the summer house.
But she found the summer house quite orderly and empty, and the garden was very still. Perhaps Aunt Eunice was taking a nap. She could see through the branches of the trees that the shutters were closed at the windows—all the windows at that side of the house. Or perhaps, better still, Aunt Eunice and Cousin Penelope had gone out to pay calls. If only they had gone out, and left Caroline at home!
Buoyed up with this hope, Jacqueline scurried along the neat path through the gay-colored, sweet-scented garden, threaded the shrubbery, crossed the lawn, and ran lightly up the steps of the cool, wide porch. The white paneled door, with its ancient fan-light, was firmly closed. She grasped the big shining brass knocker, and without waiting for her courage to ooze, rapped loudly.
She waited. She grew very conscious of her skimpy dress and her rumpled hair-ribbon. She wondered what she should say, if the maid, when she came, refused to call “Miss Jacqueline,” and went and summoned Cousin Penelope.
She knocked again timidly.