"Rose!" Eleanor cried. "How could you?"
"Oh, I knew you could never in the world send Tim back to them!"
They forgot Mrs. Hetherbee until they had signed the provisional papers of adoption for the child, and were on their way uptown in Cecilia's new limousine, which she had loaned Rosamund for the afternoon. It was disconcerting to find that Mrs. Hetherbee had no intention of releasing Eleanor; but Cecilia allowed herself to be persuaded to join in the campaign. When at last Cecilia sent for a society reporter who had never before succeeded in penetrating to her, and gave out the interesting item that she was to dine, en famille, with Mrs. Hetherbee on the twenty-second, the little lady capitulated, even adding her blessing.
To Cecilia, admiration was an incense always acceptable; Mrs. Hetherbee amused her, and one had to do something to amuse one's self. There was nothing exciting in Rosamund's shopping expeditions. The city might have been deserted, so few of their own friends were in town. Some lingered at their country places, others were in Lenox for the hunting, or still abroad. The effect of New York's social emptiness was to draw more closely together than was possible during the busier season the comparative few who for one reason or another were in town. There was more time for lunching together and going afterwards for a spin toward the Westchester hills or over to one of the Long Island golf courses; and for one of the week-ends, which were torrid with the humidity of late September, they stood out to sea aboard one of the steam yachts that were beginning to bring their owners back to the North River. Sometimes a longing for her mountains would sweep so strongly over Rosamund that she would have a sense of unreality, as if she were in a strange land, among strange people, instead of having just returned to the familiar noise and glitter of New York.
One morning, when they had been shopping about for things that refused to be discovered, and clothes which should be simple enough for the brown house, and Cecilia had refused to go farther until she had had something to eat, they went to their favorite lunching place, now curiously deserted except by people who seemed to have come from another world, who spoke in strange accents and stared about them as if still under the spell of the man with the megaphone. In a corner of the overdecorated room near a window which was still shielded by awning and window boxes from the Avenue's glare, Cecilia sank back, weary, and frankly out of sorts with everything.
"It is a most horrible time of year for shopping," she said, after she had ordered their luncheon with great precision. "There is not a thing left in the shops. I wonder what they do with the clothes that were left over? Does somebody wear them, or do they just throw them out, or what? Or is it because you are hunting for such queer things, Rosamund?"
Rosamund laughed. "But they won't be queer in the mountains, Cecilia," she said.
"I am glad I shall not have to look at them," Mrs. Maxwell replied. "But if you are going to do the peculiar, I suppose you may as well be consistently peculiar all the way along. Only, don't expect me to like it, nor approve of it; and don't think I'm encouraging you in it. I am going about with you because someone has to; I think you are foolish, very, and I really do NOT believe even Colonel Randall would have approved of your going off like this!"
Hunger and fatigue had worn on poor Cecilia's nerves; but if she had dreamed of having any other audience than her sister, the scolding would have been subdued. Flood and Pendleton, finishing their luncheon in a distant corner, had seen the two and made their ways towards them. The sharpness of Cecilia's tone seemed to amuse Marshall.
"Dear me, Cecilia," he said, so close behind her that she fairly jumped, while Rosamund smiled, "what's going off?"