XVI
When she arrived at Rosita’s the maid admitted her without protest, not recognising in this elegant young woman the countrified girl of two years before. She left Patience in the dark drawing-room, but returned in a moment and announced that Madame would see Mrs. Peele at once. Patience followed the woman through the boudoir and bedroom to the bath-room, a classic apartment of pink tiles. The tub was merely one corner of the room walled off with tiles; and in it, covered from throat to foot with a sheet, her head on a silken strap, lay Rosita. By her side sat a girl in a fashionable ulster and large hat, a note-book and pencil on her lap. Rosita looked like a dark-haired Aphrodite, and was as fresh as a rose. A maid had just dried one pink and white hand, and she held it out to Patience.
“Patita! Patita! Patita!” she said with her sweet drawl and accent, and without a trace of resentment in her soft heavy eyes. “Where, where have you been all these years? Miss Merrien, this is my oldest and dearest friend, Mrs. Beverly Peele [she pronounced the name with visible pride]. Patita, this is Miss Merrien of the ‘Day.’ She is interviewing me.”
Patience flushed as she bent her head to the young woman, who regarded her with conspicuous amazement, and whose nostrils quivered a little, as if she scented a “story.” She was a pretty girl with a dark rather worn face, a frank eye, and a nervous manner.
“Patita, sit down there just for a moment while I look at you. Then we will go into the other room. I could not wait to see you. Dios de mi alma, but you have changed, Patita mia. Who would ever have thought that you would be such a beauty and such a swell. Gray cloth and chinchilla! Just think, Miss Merrien, we used to wear sunbonnets and copper-toed boots, and drove an old blind horse that would not go off a walk.”
“May I put that down?” asked the girl, eagerly.
“Oh, please don’t,” exclaimed Patience. Miss Merrien’s face fell. Then she smiled, and said good-naturedly, “All right, I won’t.”
“And now Patita is a swell,” pursued Rosita, as if no interruption had occurred, “and I am a famous prima donna. Such is life. Patita, do you know that I have two hundred thousand dollars invested?”
“Really?”
“Si, señorita! Oh, my price has gone up, Patita mia,” and she laughed her low delicious laugh.