"It doesn’t matter. We’re late too," she answered. "I help Annie every evening now. We haven’t any cook—only Annie and that nice little Molly, and a woman who comes in by the day. War economy! But I really rather like it, and Annie has taught me so much!"
She looked at Annie with an ingratiating smile—of which Annie took not the slightest notice.
"After all," she went on, "I suppose we really ought to know how to cook—all of us women, shouldn’t we? The men do their part, so nobly, going off to fight and——” She stopped, suddenly bored with her subject. "So you see!" she said inanely, smiling again.
Angelica looked about the enormous kitchen, so spotless, so brightly lit, so marvelously equipped.
"It’s a nice place to work in," she said. "See here! Won’t you teach me? I’d like to learn."
Annie stood looking at her with a highly displeased expression. She didn’t understand this return of Angelica, and Mrs. Russell’s great friendliness toward her; and no one explained anything.
"Of course we will, my dear! You ought to learn! Let’s see. What can she do, Annie?"
"Nothing, ma’am," said Annie firmly. "It’s all done and ready to serve."
"Nonsense! It isn’t. I know it isn’t. Let’s see. My dear, I’ll show you how to do a spinach purée. It’s delicious, and frightfully good for the blood. We’re all eating spinach almost every night now. Watch me!"
Angelica was hungry and weary, but she profited to the full by this novel lesson in her great course of preparation. She watched, she questioned, she tried her own hand at it.