But Phœbe was going cheerily enough. She said her usual good afternoon to the black-clad, white-aproned maid at the front door, did a hop-skip across the patterned bricks of the wide terrace, and went trippingly down the winding steps that led to the gate and the street.
A limousine was waiting there—a long, gleaming, tawny vehicle with brown trimmings. Phœbe recognized the motor. It was Genevieve Finnegan’s, and it called for Genevieve every school afternoon. Phœbe had seen other cars of the same color flashing hither and thither through the town. The Finnegans, it was rumored, had five automobiles in their big garage. And Genevieve had been heard to say, though it was scarcely believable, that of the five cars one was kept solely for the use of the Finnegan servants! Servants! And Uncle John still clinging to a surrey and a horse with no check-rein and a long tail!
As Phœbe sped down the last half-dozen steps to the sidewalk, she did not even raise her eyes to the proud countenance of the smartly liveried Finnegan chauffeur. All day she had been troubled, knowing herself covertly discussed, and slyly ignored. Now, of a sudden, at sight of this huge testimony to many dollars and much power, she felt strangely helpless, alone, poor, and ashamed.
Her unwonted attention to her desk had made her a quarter of an hour late. She knew that Uncle John and Grandma were, even now, keeping an eye on the clock, or peering out of a window to see whether or not she was coming through the driveway gate. She hurried along, eyes straight ahead.
As she walked, her lips moved. Over and over, she was repeating certain things that she had heard the girls say that day—and certain things that she had said in reply. For instance, Olive Hayward had spoken of the graduation exercises, to be held early in June. And when Phœbe had interposed, but very meekly, to inquire what part the younger pupils would take, Olive, who was fully as round, Phœbe decided, as Uncle Bob himself—Olive had said, with a queer glance at the girls grouped with her, “Oh, do you think you’ll still be here?” “I think I will,” Phœbe had answered, and the girls had laughed!
Why?
And then there were other things. Phœbe revolved around the end of the home gate, closed it even as she started up the walk, bumped in surprise against the new screen door put up that day against winged intruders, sped along the hall, taking off the serge coat as she went, and entered the living-room, breathless, casting aside her hat with one hand and her coat with the other. She seized the squat stool upon which Uncle Bob, when reading, liked to rest his feet, carried it to a high, old mirror that had, in its time, reflected Grandma in her bridal gown, and stood upon it.
“Well, young lady?” It was Uncle Bob, from the far corner where was the telephone.
Phœbe was turning herself before the mirror—now this way, now that. “Excuse me, please,” she begged; “just a minute—something—I must see—right away—very important—before I change.”
“I should say!” agreed her uncle, watching her curiously. “What seems to be the matter?”