“Hear your grandmother!” exclaimed Mitchell, contemptuously. “You don't know women yet. Was this woman married? Did she have a husband there?”
“No; she was a young widow.”
“Ah! well, it would have been the same if she was a young girl—or an old one. Were there some passable men-boarders there?”
“I was there.”
“Oh, yes! But I mean, were there any there beside you?”
“Oh, yes, there were three or four; there was—a clerk and a——”
“Never mind, as long as there was something with trousers on. Did it ever strike you that she never got into the bath at all?”
“Why, no! What would she want to go there at all for, in that case?”
“To make an impression on the men,” replied Mitchell promptly. “She wanted to make out she was nice, and wholesome, and well-washed, and particular. Made an impression on YOU, it seems, or you wouldn't remember it.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so; and, now I come to think of it, the bath didn't seem to injure her make-up or wet her hair; but I supposed she held her head from under the shower somehow.”