SOPHIE CORNELL sat at her breakfast-table looking pasty-faced and unwholesome, without any colour on her cheeks, her good looks effectively disguised in hair-wavers and a hideously-figured heliotrope dressing-gown.
Poppy stared at her in dull amazement, wondering how she could have so little vanity as to allow another girl to see her look so unlovely.
"She will probably hate me for it, but that doesn't matter," was the thought that came into her mind as she encountered Sophie's eyes, sleep-bedimmed, but distinctly resentful, taking her in across the table. As a matter of fact, Sophie's vanity was so great, that it never occurred to her that she could appear unlovely to anyone—even in her unpainted morning hours. Her resentfulness was roused entirely by reason of the fact that this was the first time she had laid eyes on her assistant typewriter for a full three weeks, and that even now the recalcitrant only came to say that she didn't feel quite equal to work.
"Och! nonsense!" said Miss Cornell, eyeing her coolly. "You look all right. A little pale, but, then, you're always as washed out as a fadook."[4]
[4] Dishcloth.
Poppy's lips performed a twisted, dreary smile. She was entirely indifferent to Miss Cornell's opinions of her looks. To anyone's. As she stood there in the little black muslin gown she always wore to come to Sophie's house in the morning, she might have posed for a black-and-white drawing of Defeat.
Sophie saw nothing but the prospect of another two or three days' hard work, and she didn't like it.
"You're a fine sort of assistant," she grumbled, her mouth half full of toast. "And another thing: Bramham's been here several times inquiring for you, and the whole place is littered up with parcels of books and magazines he has sent you. I couldn't think what excuse to make for his not seeing you, for, of course, he thinks you live here, so I told him at last that you had a touch of dengue fever and wanted quiet. He's stayed away ever since, but he's been sending flowers and fruit. You've evidently made a mash."
Poppy had no inclination to disguise her feelings from Miss Cornell.
"Sophie, you make me sick!" she said and turned away.