She turned towards the house again, recapitulating mentally the points to which she had already decided that the attention of “the fish” must be drawn.
After that, she certainly had no more time in which to think about improbable accessions of happiness to herself. Old Carey, whether or not at the suggestion of Captain Patch, announced his intention of spending the afternoon and evening at the Club.
“You can be ready to take me there at three o’clock,” he told his daughter, to whom belonged the privilege of pushing the heavy wheeled chair in which he took his exercise.
“I wish you’d let me do that, sir,” said Captain Patch. “I really want a job this afternoon.”
He nearly always found some good reason for relieving his hostess of this fatigue duty.
That evening, she put on the only evening dress that she possessed, a black crêpe-de-chine one embroidered with silver crescents, and looked long and critically at her reflection in the glass.
She powdered her small, straight, impertinent-looking nose, admired her really beautiful teeth, and wished, as she had often wished before, that her complexion had been anything but the creamy, freckled pallor of a blonde cendrée. Just before going downstairs, she allowed herself the comfort and pleasure of inspecting, with a hand mirror, the reflection of her back hair.
As she went down, she was still smiling at the thought of that soft and fluffy twist of thick, pale gold hair.
Nancy Fazackerly told me that she very often thought of her hair resolutely, when other people displayed new and charming clothes, such as she herself had never possessed.
Sallie Ambrey’s frock that night was one that Mrs. Fazackerly had not seen before, a straight, slim, green-and-gold little frock, with no sleeves at all.