“Oh, yes! forever alone!” Elspeth concurred emphatically.
“We girls have often talked about it,” Maravene informed her; “we just love to picture you like a mourning dove....”
“A fading rose is what I always say, Maravene. I think it’s more appropriate, besides sweeter,” Constanza interrupted.
“I know you do, sister; but I like the mourning dove idea better. It’s lonesomer.”
Rosamond emitted an indignant sound nearly related to a snort.
“Stuff and nonsense! If that is the silly way you think about me, you can just give it up right now. It is time for me to put on ordinary colours and I intend to wear them—just as other people do. I am not in the least eager to meet Mr. Falcon, except for my dear Mrs. Lee’s sake. You can have him, for all I care and—and tear him to bits among you! I forgot to tell you that he is quite an old man—with a gray beard—and a bald head.”
“Oh—h! No—o!”
“Naturally—what I expected,” Miss Graham began. “Nothing—nothing....” She paused a fraction of a second to give her choker the usual masculine tug, and Berthalin and Claribel burst in with:
“Old?—gray?—bald?—who says so?”
“Mrs. Lee says so.”