Anita glanced behind her.
“Ah, you’ve noticed? I happened to admire it one day and—you know what she is—‘Would you like it? Why, of course, it would just suit the rest of your things. Oh, you must have it. I’d like you to. It’s far too big for this room.’ ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘if you want it housed——’ So that’s how it comes to be here. One couldn’t hurt her feelings. And you know, it was quite unsuitable to lodging-house furniture.”
Miss Howe laughed.
“It disguised the wash-hand-stand. That was all Madala cared. Only then she always took you round to show you how beautifully it did disguise it.”
“Typical,” said Mr. Flood. “Her reserves were topsy-turvy.”
“But she had her reserves,” said Miss Howe quickly.
“I doubt that,” he answered her.
“Oh, but she had.” Anita recovered her place in the talk. “Curious reserves. You know how she came to me over Eden Walls and Ploughed Fields. I saw every chapter. But as I was telling you, she wouldn’t hear a criticism of The Resting-place. That evening she pounced on me. She was as quick as light. She said—‘You don’t like it! I knew you wouldn’t! Never mind, Anita. Forget it! Put it in the fire! You like me. What do the books matter?’ She’d been watching me all the time.”
“She had eyes in the back of her head,” said Miss Howe.
“Kind eyes,” said the Baxter girl.