"No, of course not. But so he only comes to see her, I do.—And sometimes, Joan, why it's just embarrassing. The last afternoon, why, he had a headache or something, and she made him lie on the sofa, with a rug over him, so she could bathe his head with eau-de-cologne. I guess she's going to marry him. And I'm not the only one. The other day I heard Frau Walter and Frau von Baerle talking in the dining-room after dinner, and they said the little English widow was very HEIRATSLUSTIG."
"Ephie, I don't like to hear you repeat such foolish gossip," said Johanna in real distress. "And if you can understand and remember a word like that, you might really take more pains with your German. It is not impossible for you to learn, you see."
"Joan the preacher, and Joan the teacher, and Joan the wise old bird," sang Ephie, and laughed. "I think Mrs. Tully is real kind. She's going to show me a new way to do my hair. This style is quite out in London, she says."
"Don't let her touch your hair. It couldn't be better than it is," said Johanna quickly. But Ephie turned her head this way and that, and considered herself in the looking-glass.
Now that she knew Maurice was expected that afternoon, Johanna awaited his arrival with impatience. Meanwhile, she believed she was not wrong in thinking Ephie unusually excited. At dinner, where, as always, the elderly boarders made a great fuss over her, her laughter was so loud as to grate on Johanna's ear; but afterwards, in their own sitting-room, a trifle sufficed to put her out of temper. A new hat had been sent home, a hat which Johanna had not yet seen. Now that it had come, Ephie was not sure whether she liked it or not; and all the cries of admiration her mother and Mrs. Tully uttered, when she put it on, were necessary to reassure her. Johanna was silent, and this unspoken disapproval irritated Ephie.
"Why don't you say something, Joan?" she cried crossly. "I suppose you think it's homely?"
"Frankly, I don't care for it much, dear. To my mind, it's overtrimmed."
This was so precisely Ephie's own feeling that she was more annoyed than ever; she taunted Johanna with old-fashioned, countrified tastes; and, in spite of her mother's comforting assurances, retired in a pet to her own room.
That afternoon, as they sat together at tea, Mrs. Cayhill, who for some time had considered Ephie fondly, said: "I can't understand you thinking she isn't well, Joan. I never saw her look better."
Ephie went crimson. "Now what has Joan been saying about me?" she asked angrily.