She flung her hat into one chair and herself into another, and stared at a telegram which she spread out before her.
"'Sorry can't come,'" she read, muttering; "'something better turned up; you understand!' Yes, I understand well enough! Just like the rotter to study her own convenience and throw me over at the last moment. What am I to do now, I'd like to know?"
She lolled in her chair and glared angrily at a small black boy in a blue twill tunic and short blue knickers above his knees, who was laying a cloth on one end of the table.
"Is there any soda in the house, Piccanin?" she demanded; and when he signified yes, ordered him to fetch it then and be checcha. In the meantime, she rose and unlocked from the sideboard a bottle of whiskey.
Lunch was a slovenly meal, consisting of burnt mutton-chops, fried potatoes, and a beet-root salad liberally decorated with rings of raw onion. Miss Cornell, however, ate heartily, and enjoyed a whiskey-and-soda. She then proceeded to attack a wobbly blanc-mange beringed with strawberry jam. Occasionally she demanded of some invisible personage:
"And what am I going to do now, I'd like to know?" and the scowl returned to her brows.
Suddenly, upon the front door which stood slightly ajar fell a soft knock. Miss Cornell's hands slipped to her hair, the scowl disappeared from her face, and in a high affected voice she called:
"Come in!"
Entered, with a shy and demure air, a girl dressed in the simplest kind of dress made of thin black muslin, with a white fichu over her shoulders falling in long ends below her waist. Her large white-straw hat had round it a wreath of lilac, which was of exactly the same colour as her eyes. Her lips were amazingly scarlet.
"I beg your pardon," she said in a soft, entrancing voice. "I am sorry to disturb you at your lunch——"