Undine, on entering her bedroom late that evening, was startled by the presence of a muffled figure which revealed itself, through the dimness, as the ungirded midnight outline of Mrs. Spragg.
"MOTHER? What on earth—?" the girl exclaimed, as Mrs. Spragg pressed the electric button and flooded the room with light. The idea of a mother's sitting up for her daughter was so foreign to Apex customs that it roused only mistrust and irritation in the object of the demonstration.
Mrs. Spragg came forward deprecatingly to lift the cloak from her daughter's shoulders.
"I just HAD to, Undie—I told father I HAD to. I wanted to hear all about it."
Undine shrugged away from her. "Mercy! At this hour? You'll be as white as a sheet to-morrow, sitting up all night like this."
She moved toward the toilet-table, and began to demolish with feverish hands the structure which Mrs. Heeny, a few hours earlier, had so lovingly raised. But the rose caught in a mesh of hair, and Mrs. Spragg, venturing timidly to release it, had a full view of her daughter's face in the glass.
"Why, Undie, YOU'RE as white as a sheet now! You look fairly sick.
What's the matter, daughter?"
The girl broke away from her.
"Oh, can't you leave me alone, mother? There—do I look white NOW?" she cried, the blood flaming into her pale cheeks; and as Mrs. Spragg shrank back, she added more mildly, in the tone of a parent rebuking a persistent child: "It's enough to MAKE anybody sick to be stared at that way!"
Mrs. Spragg overflowed with compunction. "I'm so sorry, Undie. I guess it was just seeing you in this glare of light."