She ascended the steps, crossed the piazza, and found a push-button in the framing of a closed door. She pushed and waited—but not long; she was too impatient for dalliance.
Several times she pushed the button in rapid succession, holding her thumb upon it for extended periods. Nobody came to the door, which angered her anew. Then she realized that she herself could hear no ringing of a bell.
"Out of order, of course," she said bitterly.
She rapped smartly with her gloved knuckles upon the paneling of the door time after time until they ached. Then she dropped her grip, went back to the lawn, and looked up at the house again. It slept calmly.
Miss Chalmers made a circuit of the Witherbee dwelling. Not a ray of light filtered out of it from any side, not a sound—not even a snore. She returned to the front door and rapped again. Then, she seated herself in a porch-rocker and frowned.
"I absolutely will not shout," she told herself. "I am sufficiently absurd as it is. I will not be laughed at!"
She placed particular emphasis upon the last thought, as if somebody, somewhere, was displaying amusement at her plight. If there was one thing Rosalind Chalmers would not for an instant endure it was mirth of her own unintentional provoking. She was not a lady to be laughed at.
In the first place, she was too dignified, even to the point of a certain severity in manner. Where she lacked severity she substituted condescension. In the second place, she was too coldly handsome, too tall, too slimly erect. In the third place, she was too old—twenty-five. In the fourth place, she was a Vassar graduate. In the fifth place, she was too rich. In the sixth place—
Oh, why continue? It is already plain that under no circumstances was Miss Chalmers a lady to be laughed at, even by equals—to say nothing of a common river-man.
Yet she knew exactly what would happen when she succeeded in arousing the sleepers on Witherbee's Island. First, they would grumble and stumble and rub their eyes. Then they would shuffle to a window or a door and discover her. Then there would be surprise and hurry and a scene. And then—then, when everybody was thoroughly awake—would come the laughter. She reasoned it very logically and found no flaw in her conclusions.