She had brought two ivory brushes into the room, and placed them on the table. Now she pointed to them with a little hand as sweetly, faintly pink as the inside of a sea-shell. The light caught the broad wedding ring of dull gold as she did so.
Pauline took up the brushes and went up to her mistress. "I thought you wouldn't like the bed," she said, with the brusque familiarity of an old servant and friend. "In fact, I knew you wouldn't like it directly we arrived. You always wanted to sleep up in the air."
"Tiens, Pauline! I don't want to sleep anywhere to-night. Soothe me, make me comfortable. Be a good Pauline!"
The elder woman took up the brushes and stroked the shining hair with tender, loving hand. "It's been an upsetting day," she said.
Mrs. Admaston gave a sigh of relief as the kind hands busied themselves about her hair.
"Upsetting!" she cried; "that's it—just the word. I am upset. Everything has been upset. Lord Ellerdine will be fearfully upset. Oh, Pauline, just fancy our getting into the wrong train!"
The maid did not answer anything, but went on with her work.
"It was all owing to that fool of a Customs officer," the girl continued in a less strained voice. "And turning my things upside down! The way he upset my clothes was perfectly disgraceful. And before Mr. Collingwood, too! And all for half a dozen boxes of cigarettes! Keeping us there, paying their beastly tariff, until the last moment!"
Pauline put the brushes down upon the table and came round to the front of the chair. She looked critically at her mistress's hair. "Yes," she said; "but, after all, it was very lucky the porters put the boxes in the Paris train."
"Wasn't it?"