Here was not only a new world but a new life, a new starting point; she must be equal to the place, the opportunity and the occasion; she was, she told herself, equal to them all.
In this self-confident mood she returned to Nelson Lodge and found Caroline, in a different frock, seated behind the tea-table and in the act of putting the tea into the pot.
“Just in time,” she remarked, and added with intense interest, “You have brushed back your hair. Excellent! Look, Sophia, what an improvement! And more like Reginald than ever. Take off your hat, child, and let us see. My dear, I was going to tell you, when I knew you better, that those curls made you look like an organ-grinder. Don’t hush me, Sophia; I always say what I think.”
Henrietta was hurt; this, though Caroline did not know it, was a rebuff to the mother who loved the curls; but the daughter would not betray her sensibility, and as Rose was not present she dared to say, “An organ-grinder with square feet.”
“Oh, you heard that, did you? Sophia said you would. Well, you must be careful about your shoes. Men always look at a woman’s feet.” She displayed her own, elegantly arched, in lustrous stockings and very high-heeled slippers. “Sophia and I—Sophia’s are nearly, but not quite as good as mine—are they Sophia?—Sophia and I have always been particular about our feet. I remember a ball, when I was a girl, where one of my partners—he ended by marrying a ridiculously fat woman with feet like cannon balls—insisted on calling me Cinderella because he said nobody else could have worn my shoes. Delightful creature! Do you remember, Sophia?”
Sophia remembered very well. He had called her Cinderella, too, for the same reason, but as Caroline had been the first to report the remark, Sophia had never cared to spoil her pleasure in it. And now Caroline did not wait for a reply, Rose entering at that moment, and her attention having to be called to the change in Henrietta’s method of doing her hair. Henrietta stiffened at once, but Rose threw, as it were, a smile in her direction, and said, “Yes, charming,” and helped herself to cake.
“And now,” said Caroline, settling herself for the most interesting subject in the world, “your clothes, Henrietta.”
“I haven’t any,” Henrietta said at once; “but I think they’ll do until I go away. I thought I should like to be a nurse, Aunt Caroline.”
“Nurse! Nonsense! What kind? Babies? Rubbish! You’re going to stay here if you like us well enough, and we’ve made a little plan”—she nodded vigorously—“a little plan for you.”
“We ought to say at once,” Sophia interrupted with painful honesty, “that it was Rose’s idea.”