“Nobody knows. She looks like nineteen or twenty, but she has the ways of a woman of forty,—as far’s having her own way’s concerned. Then again, she’ll pet the cat or smile up at Mr. Adams like a child. I can’t make her out at all. The boarders are all fearfully curious—that’s one reason I take her part. They’re a snoopy lot, and I make them let her alone.”
“You like her, then?”
“You can’t help liking her,—yet she is exasperating. You ask her a question, and she stares at you and walks off. Not really rude,—but just as if you weren’t there! Well, I’ll tell her you’re here, anyway.”
It was only by his extraordinary powers of persuasion that Pinky Payne had won his aunt’s consent to make this call, and, being Sunday afternoon, the recognized at-home day in Corinth, they had gone to the Adams house unannounced, and asked for Miss Austin.
Upstairs, Mrs. Adams tapped at the girl’s door.
It was opened slowly,—it would seem, grudgingly,—and Anita looked out inquiringly.
“Callers for you, Miss Austin,” the landlady said, cheerily.
“For me? I know no one.”
“Oh, now, you come on down. It’s Mrs. Bates, and her nephew, Pinky Payne. They’re our best people—”
“What makes you think I want to see your best people?”