Viola turned. "Mother, this is Mrs. Rice, Professor Serviss's sister."
Kate liked Mrs. Lambert also, for she was looking remarkably handsome in a black gown of simple pattern. "If these are adventuresses they are very clever in dress," was her inward comment. "I don't wonder Morton was captivated." And she presently said: "Can't you take me to your own room? I want to talk secrets with you."
"Yes, let us do that." Viola turned to her mother. "Let's take Mrs. Rice to our sitting-room."
Mrs. Lambert assented timidly, with a quick glance towards Simeon, who was garrulously declaiming to Britt concerning the wonders of another painting by the Swedish cook.
Pratt, seeing the women rise, approached. "Where are you going?" he asked, with a note of impatience in his voice.
"To my room," answered Viola, firmly, and led the way up-stairs in silence; but when they were beyond earshot in the hall above she bitterly exclaimed: "He spies on everything I do. He will hardly let me out of his sight. I am beginning to hate him, he has so little sense of decency."
"Viola!" warned the mother.
"I don't care," retorted the girl, defiantly. "Why do we endure him—we are not dependent on him. He treats us precisely as if he owned us, and I'm tired of it. I wish papa would come on and take us home."
"He may be a bore, but he houses you like royalty," Kate remarked, as she glanced about the suite which Viola and her mother occupied. It formed the entire eastern end of the third floor of the house, and the decorations were Empire throughout, with stately canopied beds and a most luxurious bath-room.
"Oh yes, it's beautiful; but I would rather be this minute in our little log-cabin in the West," answered the girl, with wistful sadness. "Oh, these warm days make me homesick. When I was there I hated it, now I long to get back. I seem five years older—this winter has been terribly long to me."