The next morning Anita appeared in the dining-room at the breakfast hour.
Mrs. Adams scanned her sharply, and looked a little disapprovingly at the short, scant skirt and slim, silken legs of her new boarder.
Anita, her dark eyes scanning her hostess with equal sharpness, seemed to express an equal disapproval of the country-cut gingham and huge white apron.
Not at all obtuse, Mrs. Adams sensed this, and her tone was a little more deferential than she had at first intended to make it.
“Will you sit here, please, Miss Austin?” she indicated a chair next herself.
“No, thank you, I’ll sit by my friend,” and the girl slipped into a vacant chair next Saltonstall Adams.
Old Salt gave a furtive glance at his wife, and suppressed a chuckle at her surprise.
“This is Mr. Tyler’s place,” he said to the usurper, “but I expect he’ll let you have it this once.”
“I mean to have it all the time,” and Anita nodded gravely at her host.
“All the time is this one meal only,” crisply put in Mrs. Adams. “I’m sorry, Miss Austin, but we can’t keep you here. I have no vacant room.”