“It really isn’t of any consequence what she’s like,” I soothed. “Just take her as a matter of business.”
“Matter of business!” She struck her hands on the arms of the chair with a slapping sound and jumped up. “What have I to do with business?” Then she walked to the window and stood drumming with her fingers on the pane.
The quick nervous tattoo fell ominously on my uneasiness. Miss Bliss sent a furtive masonic look at me, and glanced away. With an elaborate air of nonchalance she patted her frill and picked at her skirt, and finally, unable to stand the combined pressure of our silence and her own curiosity, said boldly:
“What kind of a house was it?”
Lizzie answered slowly, pronouncing each word with meticulous precision:
“It was a large, shiny, expensive house. It was a hideous house. Nobody who was anything, or ever expected to be anybody, ought to go into such a house.”
“You don’t say!” exclaimed Miss Bliss, artlessly amazed. “I read about it in the papers and they said it cost millions and had things in it out of kings’ palaces.”
To this there was no response, and Dolly Bliss and I began to talk together. We chose a safe topic—a bargain sale of stockings at Macy’s. We tried to invest it with a careless sprightliness, which was difficult, not so much because of the subject but by reason of the tattoo on the pane. It was like an accompaniment out of tune. We couldn’t seem to give our minds to the stockings while it went on, even when we raised our voices and tried to drown it. Suddenly it stopped and we stopped, too, dropping the stockings and eying each other with fixed stares. Each of us was determined not to look at Lizzie and it took all our will to refrain.
She began moving about behind us, and we tried a new subject—the count’s approaching departure. We said nice things about him, echoed each other. I remarked that he was a charming person, and Miss Bliss remarked that he was a very charming person. We had to make a great effort. It was almost impossible to keep it up with that woman padding about behind your chair like an ill-tempered tiger. When a sudden unexpected sound of tearing paper came from her, I jumped as if the tiger had made a spring at me. She was opening one of her letters. It loosened the tension. We suppressed gasps and took up the count again, more as if he was a human being and less as if he was the center piece at a dull dinner-party. Lizzie’s voice, loud and startled, stopped us.
“What do you think of this—Mrs. Stregazzi’s married Berwick!”