Susan moved a little. "I will," she said.
Ruth went to bed and soon fell asleep. After an hour or so she awakened. Light was streaming through the open connecting door. She ran to it, looked in. Susan's clothes were in a heap beside the bed. Susan herself, with the pillows propping her, was staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. It was impossible for Ruth to realize any part of the effect upon her cousin of a thing she herself had known for years and had taken always as a matter of course; she simply felt mildly sorry for unfortunate Susan.
"Susie, dear," she said gently, "do you want me to turn out the light?"
"Yes," said Susan.
Ruth switched off the light and went back to bed, better content. She felt that now Susan would stop her staring and would go to sleep. Sam's call had been very satisfactory. Ruth felt she had shown off to the best advantage, felt that he admired her, would come to see her next time. And now that she had so arranged it that Susan would avoid him, everything would turn out as she wished. "I'll use Arthur to make him jealous after a while—and then—I'll have things my own way." As she fell asleep she was selecting the rooms Sam and she would occupy in the big Wright mansion—"when we're not in the East or in Europe."
CHAPTER V
RUTH had forgotten to close her shutters, so toward seven o'clock the light which had been beating against her eyelids for three hours succeeded in lifting them. She stretched herself and yawned noisily. Susan appeared in the connecting doorway.
"Are you awake?" she said softly.
"What time is it?" asked Ruth, too lazy to turn over and look at her clock.
"Ten to seven."