"You needn't get ratty, dear thing," retorted the grass-widow. "I don't want to pry into your secrets. But"--she rustled up from her chair, and made a movement to begin undressing--"if he should write that he's coming to see you, for goodness' sake try and make yourself look a little less of a 'patient Griselda.' What about face-massage? I know a man in Sloane Street who's simply wonderful!"
2
Aliette, whom Mollie visited next day, was even more shocked than Betty Masterman at the change in her sister's appearance. The girl seemed utterly altered, utterly different from the fancy-free maiden of Moor Park. She came into the connubial room nervously; almost forgot to kiss; entirely forgot to inquire after Ronnie; refused to take off her hat, and sat down on the edge of the hard sofa gingerly as though it had been an omnibus seat.
"Rather awful, isn't it?" Aliette, with a comprehensive glance at her surroundings, broke the social ice. "You mustn't mind."
"I don't mind. But it is rather awful." A pause. "I suppose you had to do it, Alie?"
"Do what? Come and live here?"
"No. The whole thing." Aliette did not answer, and her sister went on. "I wish you hadn't had to. It's been simply rotten at home. Mother and dad----" She broke off, biting her lip. "They aren't so bad really; it's Eva who's putrid."
"Eva never did like either of us."
For the first time in their lives, the sisters felt shy with one another. Caroline Staley, entering, broad-hipped, a smile on her full lips and a tea-tray in her large hands, noticed the tension.
"My, Miss Mollie!" ejaculated the tactful Caroline, "but you aren't looking yourself at all. You ought to take that hat off and lie down awhile."