“You wouldn’t.” Elsie lifted the suitcase which was filled and closed now, and picking up her hand-bag from where it lay on the dressing table, took a step toward the door. But Kate reached it ahead of her.
“I’ll shout,” Kate warned.
“Kate Marshall, please, please, please don’t!”
“I certainly will.”
Elsie began to cry silently and stood with her suitcase in one hand, her bag in the other, and her face turned from Kate, ashamed of her tears. Kate’s heart softened, but not her determination.
“Get undressed and into bed, and promise you won’t get out again to-night, or I shall go right to Aunt Katherine’s room now and tell her,” Kate said firmly.
After a moment of hesitation Elsie began to pull off her clothes furiously. In about two minutes she was in bed, her face turned toward the wall. In silence Kate picked up the cast-off garments Elsie had scattered, and put them away. The green suit she hung up on a hanger in the closet and the hat she put away in the deep hat-drawer. Then the suitcase claimed her attention. Bertha had better not find it packed and standing by the door in the morning. Kate unlatched it and took out the things. “The King of the Fairies” lay at the bottom of them all, with a little New Testament. Kate put the two books on Elsie’s bedside table under the lamp. Still Elsie did not move or speak; she might have been asleep for any sign she made that she knew what was occupying Kate in the room.
But Kate spoke to her: “You’ve burned a hole in your party dress,” she said.
It was true. The heat from the electric bulb had been strong enough to scorch the flimsy material.
“No matter,” Elsie muttered from her pillow. “I’ll never wear it again, anyway.”