Sigma paused and thought. Following the index finger she recognized the clock, looked inquiringly from it to the lady, and then suddenly felt she understood, a thing of almost exciting infrequency. She scuffled good-naturedly across the room, picked up the heavy timepiece and was in the act of handing it to Mrs. Mar.
“Let the clock alone! Put it down, I say. What will she do next? The table. Table!” She beat upon it briskly with her one free hand. “Supper.”
“Oh, soopra!” says the girl, setting down the clock and lurching hurriedly toward the kitchen.
“Stop! Don’t you understand you have to set the table earlier to-day? Before—you—go—out. Your evening. Understand? Your friend calls for you at six.” She indicated the hour on the clock face. “Takes you—heaven knows where. She doesn’t forget if you do. Your—evening—out.” As Sigma only stood and stared dully, Mrs. Mar dropped into the rocking-chair with, “I foresee this girl will drive me demented.”
Sigma embraced the opportunity to shuffle toward the door again.
“Where you off to now? You can’t go till you’ve set the table. Here!” Still with the well-inured infant sleeping on her arm, Mrs. Mar, remarking in a conversational tone that she was “certain she should go mad,” pulled open the sideboard drawer and took out the tablecloth. “Put this on. Straight, for a change. Then the mats.”
The mistress’s eye falling suddenly upon that deplorable place in the carpet, she was forcibly reminded of the little copper-toed boots that had wrought the havoc.
“What are they at now?” she said, half to herself, as she crossed the room, and, craning her chin over the sleeping child at her breast, she guided the toe of her shoe under the tacked bit, stroking down the darned tatters underneath, before she straightened and trod flat the outer layer. Each time thereafter that she crossed the troubled area her foot, half-impatient, half-caressing, encouraged the patch to lie still. “What keeps those children so quiet? Where are they?”
Sigma, hearing the anxious rise in her mistress’s voice, dropped the corner of the cloth she was twitching and rushed for the mats.
“No, no, finish. Here. Straight. Like this.” A moment’s silence, and then again, “Where are those children?”