"Well, I never!" Mrs. Oakley appeared in the doorway, her bare arms glazed with soapsuds and her face beaded with steam. "You ain't sick, are you?"
"No, I remember now. It was a piece of embroidery Rose Emily was doing. She asked me to bring it."
"Embroidery? I should think she might have managed to wait till to-morrow."
"I didn't mind the walk. It is better than being in the store."
"Anyway, you'd better rest a bit before you go back. You look real peaked. Have you got a headache?" So her mother hadn't heard! Who would be the first one to tell her?
"A little. It was getting wet yesterday, I reckon." She must say something. If she didn't, her mother would question her all day.
"If you'd listened to what I told you," said Mrs. Oakley, "you wouldn't have got caught in that storm. Before you go upstairs you'd better rub a little camphor on your forehead."
She lifted her arms, on which soapsuds had dried like seaweed, and went back into the kitchen, while Dorinda, without stopping to look for the camphor, toiled upstairs to her room. Here she flung herself on the bed and lay staring straight up at the stained ceiling, where wasps were crawling. One, two, three, she counted them idly. There was a pile of apples on her mantelpiece. That must have brought them. But she couldn't lie here. Springing up, she went over to the mirror and began nervously changing things on her dressing-table.
Yes, she was ashen about the eyes and her features were thin and drawn. Her warm colour still held firm, but she was mottled about the mouth like a person in a high fever. Even her full red lips looked parched and unnatural. "I am losing my looks," she thought. "I am only twenty and I look middle-aged."
Why had she come back? It was worse here than it was at the store. Her suffering was more intolerable, and she seemed farther away from relief than she had been while she was cleaning the shelves. Perhaps if she went back she should find that it was easier. Something might have happened to change things. At least her mother wouldn't be at the store, and she dreaded her mother more than anything that she had to face. Yes, she had made a mistake to come home.