They worked together cheerfully, and Gladys told Mrs. Aviolet all about the baker’s young man, who was becoming ever so attentive. Rose listened and ejaculated with an absorbed and impassioned interest, which Gladys, though pleased and flattered, obviously regarded as entirely natural. And Rose told herself that this was a good deal better than trying to pump interesting details about the engagement of Ford and Diana out of her mother-in-law.
“Shall you wear your white silk blouse with the ruffle, ’m, this evening?” Gladys inquired shyly.
“Do you think it’s pretty? Prettier than my blue?”
“It’s more stylish, ’m, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps it is,” said Rose thoughtfully.
She went upstairs that evening, tried on both the blouses, gazed at herself critically for a long while, rubbed some additional rouge into her face, and smeared her mouth with lip-salve, and finally went down to supper wearing the white blouse with the ruffle and her best navy-blue skirt.
Uncle Alfred gazed at her sharply, but Millar and Felix Menebees were both in the room and he said nothing.
As soon as supper was over Artie Millar went away and Felix retired to the performance of some one of the innumerable menial tasks that he always accepted as being part of his duty.
When the bell rang, Rose went half-way downstairs.
It was Felix who opened the door, Gladys having stipulated that she should not be required to announce Lord Charlesbury by name, as “titles upset her,” and Rose having indignantly retorted that a Lordship couldn’t be introduced with the customary formula of “a gentleman to see you.”