"Yas'm, he say as soon as you c'd make it convenient."
The girl had risen sharply in the first complete surprise of Flora's message; she walked hastily across her floor. But having done these things, she did not at once give the obviously due reply. She stood by her dressing-table, staring fixedly at the colored woman, the aimless fingers of her left hand continually pulling out and putting back the silver top of a squat cut-glass bottle. She appeared to be thinking, weighing pros and cons: processes surely unnecessary to a pasteboard actor, sliding smoothly toward a manifest destiny.
She stood this way so long and so silent that Flora prompted with a giggle and further information.
"Miss Cyahlile, he say if you was to answer no, to say could he please speak to you a minute on the 'phone."
Upon that Miss Carlisle was seen to replace the bottle stopper with consciousness of movement, and to turn her slate-blue eyes briefly toward the ceiling, with no movement of her head at all.
"Very well ... Say that I'll see him at half-past eight, for a few minutes."
Flora, naturally, was not a woman without understanding the sign language of her sex. It might be that she had learned the color of the Canning money--and she had--but her dusky heart, like yours or mine, was not for sale.
"Yas'm--certny ... Yas'm. Or, Miss Cyahlile--I mout just say we 're mighty sorry--but not knowin' he was expected, and you feelin' po'ly an' all--you just this minute went to baid--an'--"
"No!--do as I say," said the young mistress, quite sharply. But, as her faithful friend turned away, she added in another voice: "You're a good girl, Flora.... Be sure to say just for a few minutes."
After the solitude and meditation came action at speed.