We fell into each other's arms, and laughed and kissed, as though we had been parted for weeks.
I was determined not to let her know that Aunt Josephine and I were not liking one another. I only said I didn't like her taste in pictures.
Betty tried to stand up for her. She reminded me of the statues and casts from the antique at Lord Helmstone's. She asked me suddenly if I wasn't well. I complained a little of the air. I thought we might have the window open while I did her hair. But Betty said, no. She had tried, and found she didn't understand London fastenings. So she had rung for the maid, and the maid had said: "This isn't the country"—and that people didn't like their windows open in London. Betty thought it quite reasonable. London dust and "blacks" would soon ruin this pretty white room.
Betty defended everything.
When I complained that the scent everywhere was making me headachy, Betty said she liked it. She wished our mother would let us use scent. The only thing Betty found the least fault with was the way I was doing her hair. She wanted it put up "in honour of London." But she looked such a darling with her short curls lying on her neck that I was doing it in the everyday way. And there wasn't time now for anything more than to fasten on the little wreath, for the woman came to say madam had sent up for us. So I hurried Betty into her frock, the woman watching out of those hard eyes of hers. Nobody in the whole of Betty's life had looked at her like that. The woman didn't want us to stop even to find a handkerchief. And after all, just as Betty was coming, the woman said: "Wait a minute," and wanted to shut the door. I stood on the threshold waiting. A gentleman was coming upstairs. With his hat on! He stared at me as he went by, and so did the footman who followed him. I drew back into the room and the woman shut the door.
"Who was that gentleman?" I asked. She seemed not to hear. So I asked again.
"That—oh, that is the doctor," she said. Naturally we asked if somebody was ill.
"Not very," she answered in such a peculiar way we said no more.
She stood and watched us as we went downstairs.