A joyous flush tinted her satiny skin which was innocent of even the knowledge of powder. Thoughts of freedom came to her and made her breath stir quickly. They promised her things vague and splendid and she felt a flutter about her heart like the wings of birds waking for the morning flight. She was beautiful, she was rich, she was young; and for one whole day, at least, she was her own mistress. A laugh rippled through the sombre old curio shop of a bedroom. She swept herself a curtsy and called gleefully to the contented-looking apparition in the mirror:
“Good-morning, Rosamond!”
She fairly danced down the stairs.
CHAPTER III
In the living room she paused for a conference with herself.
“Let me see,” she said, aloud. “Amanda said I must send for Mrs. Greenup at once, to manage the house till they come back. So I shan’t do it! I’ll be my own Cinderella—sometimes in the kitchen and sometimes my ladyship. This may be the only day I’ll ever have that is all mine. So it must be—it’s just got to be—wonderful! and nobody shall spy on it. What shall I do first?”
She dropped into an enormous padded chair and stared thoughtfully at the farthest wall. When one is to have perhaps only one Wonderful Day, decision regarding how to spend every moment of it is important.
Even immersed—as she was—in delicious hopes, she could not remain long unaware that her eyes were fixed upon the countenance of the man who had brought her to Villa Rose. The childish glow, the eager make-believe, which had transformed her into a girl of eighteen again, faded from her eyes. In their place came a wistful gravity, the look of one who has probed and queried and accepted certain harsh facts, yet refused to let them wholly dispel the fancy and optimism which alone can make a life of facts livable. She accosted the portrait.