The girl held her breath, held all her being back from admitting that the apparition by the door could be—For it wasn't the disfiguring dress alone or chiefly, that in the first instant had paralyzed the visitor's tongue and rooted her where she stood. Greta, yes. And they had clothed her body with ridicule. But what had they done to her spirit? There was a horror about the change that over-topped pity, for that awful first moment, while Greta stood, grotesque, dreadful, not so much looking at the girl as looking through her, looking out of eyes too haunted by other shapes to take in an apparition so insignificant as Nan Ellis. Even when Nan was able to move forward, "O, Greta!" was all she could say, but she held out her two hands.
The changed woman hadn't even one to offer.
"What have you come for?" she said in a queer voice.
"Why, to—to see you."
"To see what I look like. Well, you see."
"O Greta!" The girl shrank as if the other woman had struck her. After a quivering moment she added, "I came to ask if I can do anything."
"Who sent you?"
Nan knew now what was the matter with the voice: it was purged of personality. Greta spoke like the wardresses, in a tone out of which all modulation had gone.
"Nobody sent me," said Nan.
"No, of course not."