Patience looked out undaunted upon the sea of flushed angry faces, which a few moments before had been all peace and love. She shrugged her shoulders, bowed to Miss Beale, who was staring at her with horrified eyes in a livid face, and walked toward the door. The girls pressed her forward, lest she should speak again.
“We have a right as churchwomen to hate you,” cried one, “for we are told to hate the devil, and you are he incarnate.”
Patience refused to accelerate her steps, but reached the door in a moment. As she was about to pass out a joyous face was uplifted to hers. It belonged to a girl still sitting. Her lap was piled with loose sheets of paper. There was an excited smirch of lead on her cheek. Even as she raised her head and spoke she continued writing. “That was a corker,” she whispered, “the biggest story I’ve had in weeks.” It was Miss Merrien.
XVII
Patience was an early riser, and had usually read the “Day” through before Beverly lounged downstairs, sleepy and cross and masculine. On the morning after her day of varied experience she took the newspaper into the library and read the first page leisurely, as was her habit. The news of the world still interested her profoundly. Then she read the editorials, and, later, glanced idly at the headlines of the “stories.” The following arrested her startled eye:
AN EARTHQUAKE IN MARIAVILLE!
THE GOOD PEOPLE ARE OUTRAGED!
A SENSATION BY THE BEAUTIFUL AND BRILLIANT
MRS. BEVERLY PEELE!
The story covered two thirds of a column. Patience read it three times in succession without stopping to comment. It was graphically told, much exaggerated, and as carefully climaxed as dramatic fiction. And it was interesting reading. Patience decided that if it had not been about herself she should have given it more than passing attention. Her beauty and grace and elegance, her grand air, were described with enthusiasm. Every possible point of contrast was made to the serious and unfashionable Y’s.