“You’ve all of you been awfully good to me,” said the Baxter girl. But her gratitude was too general to be acceptable. Even I could have told her that.
“Oh, we do our best for you,” said Mr. Flood.
She looked at him from under her lashes.
“Yes, and she’s thinking this minute what a nice little scene this would make for her new book—touched up, of course,” said the woman behind him.
“Art—selection—Jimmy Whistler——” Mr. Flood was one indistinct murmur.
“With herself her own heroine again, eh?” Miss Howe baited her.
“I didn’t. I wasn’t.”
“Better folk than you do it, child! Anita says so. Don’t they, Anita?”
“Oh,” said Anita heavily, “I wish Madala Grey were here. I wish she hadn’t died. If she were here she wouldn’t—you’d never—she wouldn’t let you laugh at me.”
Miss Howe looked at her intently. There was a quick little run of expression across her large handsome face, like a hand playing a scale. It showed, that easily moved, easily read face, surprise, interest, concern, and, in the end, the sentimental impulse of your kind fur-clad woman to the beggar on the curb. ‘Why! I believe she’s cold! I don’t like it! Give her tuppence, quick!’ She was out of her chair, overwhelming Anita, in one impetuous heave of drapery.