II
Mrs. Lanier was established in a hotel of the sort which Emily had never yet entered. Directly she entered its august portals, she felt herself dwindle again. What were her fur coat and her necklace here? Who was Mrs. Denis Lanier? Nothing at all!
She went up to the desk and told the haughty young man there that Mrs. Denis Lanier wished to see Mrs. Cecil Lanier; and then she waited.
It was the waiting that unnerved her. If some one had come at once, if she had been taken upstairs without delay, her courage might have held out; but to sit there, alone and unregarded, while fifteen endless minutes went by, was too much for her. She began seriously to contemplate running away.
“She’s doing it on purpose—just to be rude and hateful!” she thought. “I won’t stay! Denis wouldn’t want me to stay. It’s humiliating and—”
She was aware then that some one had come up behind her and stopped at her side, looking down at her. What is more, she felt certain that it was a critical, hostile look.
“Very well!” said she to herself. “Go ahead and stare! It doesn’t bother me the least little bit in the world!”
She sat quite still, trying valiantly not to care; but it was unendurable. She felt her face flush. She stirred uneasily, and very soon she turned, to glance up into a pair of glacial blue eyes.
“Is this Emily?” asked the other. “I fancied so.”
Remarkable, the implications that could be put into six short words!