XIII
There came a day when Christina put her feet to the grimy pavement of the street and walked slowly but without assistance to Dr. Merville's car, borrowed through Beryl, for the afternoon.
It was a cold, clear day in January, the wind was in the east and the gutters of Walter Street were covered with a thin film of ice.
A momentous occasion, for in addition to other wonders, Christina was wearing her first hat! Evie had chosen and bought it. The woolen costume was one from Mrs. Colebrook's wash-tub. Ambrose had provided a gray squirrel coat. It had appeared at the last moment. But the hat was a joy. Christina had worn it in bed all the morning, sitting up with pillows behind her and a mirror in her hand.
"Lend me that powder-puff of yours, Evie," she said recklessly, "My skin is perfect. I admit it. But I can't appear before the curious eyes of the world wearing my own complexion. It wouldn't be decent."
"If you take my advice," suggested the wise Evie, "you'll put a dab of rouge on your cheeks. Nobody will know."
"I am no painted woman," said Christina, "I am poor but I am respectable. Ambrose would think I had a fever and send for the osteopath. No, a little powder. My eyes are sufficiently languorous without eyeblack, I think. It must be powder or nothing."
Ambrose did not accompany them, and Evie and Mrs. Colebrook were her attendants in the drive to Hampstead.
Beryl saw them; she had arranged with Ambrose and the chauffeur that the car should go past the house and she watched from behind a curtained window.