Isabel followed her up the stairs and into the large sunny front bedroom. The children being invisible and also inarticulate, were doubtless in the back yard. The room was vaguely untidy without being dirty. A basket of socks and stockings in various stages of repair stood on a table by the window, but pushed aside to accommodate the Saturday society papers and a novel from the circulating library. An opera-cloak lay across a chair, flung there, no doubt, the night before, and on the floor close by was a pair of pink worn slippers very narrow at the toes but bulging backward like a toy boat. On the sofa was a freshly laundried pile of shirts with detached collars and cuffs, which Mrs. Stone immediately began ostentatiously to snip along the frayed edges. The room itself was full of sunshine, which gave it a cheerful air in spite of the faded Brussels carpet and the old-fashioned walnut furniture, a contribution from the house on Russian Hill. Mrs. Paula wore a vastly becoming wrapper of red nun's veiling trimmed with a yellowish lace that by no means looked as cheap as it was. She was pretty to excess, one of those little brown women that men admire and often trust. Had she been thin she would have been bird-like with her bright darting brown glance, but her cheeks, like her tightly laced little figure, were very round, and so crimson that they excited less suspicion than the more delicate and favorite pink. And the brilliant color suited her peasant style of prettiness, her full red lips, her bright crisp bronze hair. She had a fashion of absently sweeping the loose sleeves of her wrapper and "artistic" house-gowns up to her shoulder and revealing a plump and charming arm; and the pointed toe of shoe or slipper was always visible. Her arts were lost on Isabel, who understood and despised her, but who regarded her as a sacred legacy from her mother; Mrs. Belmont had been devoted to the pretty child she had adopted just after burying three of her own, and who had waited on her hand and foot to the day of her death. Isabel was always conscious of putting on a curb the moment she entered her sister's presence, but thought it good discipline, and only spoke her mind when goaded beyond endurance.
"I tried to telephone," she began, but was interrupted by a deep sigh.
"The telephone is cut off—we owe for three months. Hateful things!—they know we always pay some time or other."
"If you are so badly off would it not be more economical to make the children's clothes—"
"Isabel! Much you know about children! One can buy ready-made things for just half."
Isabel subsided, for she felt herself at a disadvantage before this experienced young matron; although she vaguely recalled that whenever she had presented the children with little frocks and sailor suits she had expended a considerable sum. But doubtless she had gone to the wrong shops. Mrs. Paula was one of those women that haunted the cheap shops and bargain-counters, and was always in debt.
"What a heavenly suit!" she exclaimed, her eyes roving covetously over Isabel's smart black costume. "Paris, I suppose. Fancy being able to walk into a store and order a new dress whenever you feel like it. I have never done that in all my life—"
"It was for that I settled an income upon you before I left for Europe, but if it is not enough to buy a new frock occasionally—"
"Oh, it would be enough if I could use it for that purpose, but you know what my life is! If Lyster would only live economically—but it is dining out at a restaurant five nights a week—champagne half the time, especially if we have a guest, and we generally have—a Californian thinks himself disgraced if he doesn't give invited company champagne. It's all very well to brag about the magnificence and generosity of this town—when you can afford to. But most everybody I know, at least, can't, and when the first of the month comes, I guess the women all wish that San Francisco was more like New York, where they say every Californian in time avoids every other Californian for fear he'll want to borrow five dollars, and all the men let themselves go wild over Emma Eames because she's proper and doesn't cost anything. It's time we reformed instead of flinging money about like European princes—spending four times as much as you've got for fear of being called stingy. A San Franciscan would rather be called a murderer than mean. I talk and talk, and it's no use. A terrible thing has happened to us," she ended, abruptly.
"What?" asked Isabel, startled; she had lent an indifferent ear to the familiar harangue.