Alice shrugged her shoulders, with a foreign gesture which she had picked up. "Oh, you must see some of my others," she replied, "I wish that my trunks would come, but I forgot they were all sent to the other house, and I haven't even a nightgown. Will you lend me a nightgown, mamma? I have some of the loveliest you ever saw which were embroidered for me by the nuns in a French convent."
"So, you'll spend the night?" said Lydia, "I'm so glad, dear, and I'll go up and see if your bed has sheets on it."
"Oh, it's not only for the night," returned Alice, defiantly, "I've come back for good. I've left Geoffrey, haven't I, papa?"
"I hope so, darling," answered Ordway, coming for the first time over to where they stood.
"Left Geoffrey?" repeated Lydia. "Do you mean you've separated?"
"I mean I'm never going back again—that I detest him—that I'd rather die—that I'll kill myself before I'll do it."
Lydia received her violence with the usual resigned sweetness that she presented to an impending crisis.
"But, my dear, my dear, a divorce is a horrible thing!" she wailed.
"Well, it isn't half so horrible as Geoffrey," retorted Alice.
Ordway, who had turned away again as Lydia spoke, came forward at the girl's angry words, and caught the hand that she had stretched out as if to push her mother from her.