“But there is no epidemic about, is there?”
“No: it’s just a superstition of mine.”
Brusquely she rose, stuffing sewing and stone into her pocket. She glanced at her inquisitor coldly. We usually dislike people to whom we are obliged to lie.
“How dreadfully ill you look!” she remarked, with an accent on the “dreadfully.” A faint colour came into the elder woman’s cheek. She had looked upon the face of forty, and to-day the fact was painfully revealed. The contrast between herself and the girl in all the bloom and heyday of youth was striking.
“Bad heads take time to get over,” she said curtly, “and it is stuffy in one’s room.”
“Ah yes. Where is your room?” asked Loree eagerly. Anything to get away from the subject of topazes and camphor-bags.
“On the hot side of the hotel,” said Mrs Cork dryly. “We can’t all afford the best side, like you.”
This was the first time Loree had heard of a best or worst side but not the first time it had been brought home to her that, where she was concerned, Pat never considered the best too good.
“I should have come round to you last night if I had known where your room was,” she said thoughtlessly.
Valeria Cork looked surprised.