“I guess you’ll have to.” Mrs. Adams spoke a little crisply. “It’s a—a summons. You’ve got to come.”
“Oh.” Miss Austin’s manner changed. “Well, I will, then. Wait till I bathe my face.”
Mrs. Adams came in, closed the door and waited. She felt sorry for Miss Mystery, but she also felt suspicious of her. Perhaps the mystery would now be cleared up.
The good woman was about to speak kindly to her strange boarder but as she watched, she lost the desire to help her.
For, to Mrs. Adams’ primitive notions, the girl was doing dreadful things.
Having bathed her tear-stained face, Miss Mystery proceeded to powder it lightly, and, horror of horrors, she added the merest flick of rouge to her pale cheeks. And not content with such baseness she stooped to further degradation and touched her pale lips with some heathenish contraption that made them just a little redder!
No, Mrs. Adams had no sympathy for a girl who would do such awful things, and she waited in a grim and stony silence.
Then Miss Mystery fluffed out her pretty dark hair a little more over her ears, settled her sailor collar, with its row of tiny buttons for trimming, and with a critical glance at her shoes, signified her readiness to go down stairs.
Still in disapproving silence, Mrs. Adams marched by her side, and they went together to face the visitors.
The attitude of the girl as she entered the room was a triumph of perfection.