"Did Mrs. Higgs send you?"
"Yes."
"Then wait a minute."
All the indignation, all the defiance, had gone from his tone. He looked anxious, haggard.
Carrie sat down like an automaton in the chair nearest to the door.
There was a silence of some minutes' duration when Carrie announced herself as a messenger from Mrs. Higgs.
Dudley, who had either forgotten the presence of Max or was past caring how much his friend learned, since he already knew so much, walked up and down between the fireplace and the bookcase on the opposite wall, evidently debating what he should do. Carrie never once raised her eyes from the carpet, but sat like a statue beside the door, apparently as indifferent as possible as to the message she should take back.
Max had risen from his seat and was standing where he could get a full view of her over the lamp on the dinner-table between them. Perhaps it was the yellow paper shade around the light which made the young girl's face look so ghastly, or the rusty black clothes she wore. A plain skirt, the same that she had worn when he saw her first, a black stuff cape of home-made pattern, and a big black straw hat which had evidently done duty throughout the summer; all were neatly brushed and clean, but well-worn and lusterless, and they heightened the appearance of deadly pallor which, struck Max so much.
Her eyes he could not see; her scarlet lips were tightly closed, and her face seemed to him to wear an air of dogged determination which helped him to understand how it was that she had escaped the perils of her unprotected girlhood. Certainly it would have taken a good deal of courage, impudence or alcoholic excitement to make a man address to this statuesque and cold-faced creature a flippant word.
She did not see Max, who kept so quiet that it was easy for her to overlook the presence of a third person in the room. He watched her intently, taking even more interest in her under these new conditions than he had done before. Would she retain her cold look and manner when he made his presence known to her, as he intended presently to do? The question was full of interest to him.