“Where have you been?”
“Pictures.”
“With Ireen?”
“’M.”
“I shall ask her what they were like, next time I see her,” said Geraldine significantly.
Elsie pulled the ribbon off her hair without untying it, shuffled her clothes off on to the floor from beneath a nightgown that was the counterpart of her sister’s, and dabbed at her face with a sponge dipped in cold water. She carefully parted her hair on the other side for the night, and brushed it vigorously for some moments to promote growth, but the worn bristles of her wooden-backed brush were grey with dust and thick with ancient “combings.”
At the bedside Elsie knelt down for a few seconds with her face hidden in her hands, as she had always done, muttered an unthinking formula, and got into bed.
“You’re very sociable, I must say,” Geraldine exclaimed. “Out half the night, and not a word to say when you do come up!”
“I thought you had a headache.”
“A lot you care about my headache.”