Mrs. Porter's agonised cry, "You see him, Lucy!... You see him, Lucy!" warned her.
"No, no," she answered. She felt something like a cold breath of stagnant water pass her. She turned back to see the old woman tumble across the table, scattering the little cards.
The room was emptied. They two were alone; she knew, without moving, horror and self-shame holding her there, that her poor friend was dead.
[VIII]
LOIS DRAKE
Miss Lois Drake lived in one of the attics at the top of Hortons. That sounds poverty-struck and democratic, but as a matter of fact it was precisely the opposite.
The so-called "attics" at Hortons are amongst the very handsomest flats in London, their windows command some of the very best views, and the sloping roof that gives them their name does not slope enough to make them inconvenient, only enough to make them quaint.
Miss Drake was lucky, and asked Mr. Nix whether he had any flats to let on the very day that one of the attics was vacated. But then, Miss Drake was always lucky, as you could see quite well if you looked at her. She was a tall, slim girl, with dark brown hair, an imperious brow, and what her friends called a "bossy" mouth. It was, indeed, her character to be "bossy." Her father, that noted traveller and big-game hunter, had encouraged her to be "bossy"; the Drakes and the Bosanquets and the Mumpuses, all the good old county families with whom she was connected, encouraged her to be "bossy." Finally, the war had encouraged her to be "bossy." She had become in the early days of 1915 an officer in the "W.A.A.C." and since then she had risen to every kind of distinction. She had done magnificently in France; had won medals and honours. No wonder she believed in herself. She was born to command other women; she had just that contempt for her sex and approval of herself necessary for command. She believed that women were greatly inferior to men; nevertheless, she was always indignant did men not fall down instantly and abase themselves before the women of whom she approved. "She bore herself as a queen," so her adoring friends said; quite frankly she considered herself one. The "W.A.A.C." uniform suited her; she liked stiff collars and short skirts and tight belts. She was full-breasted, had fine athletic limbs, her cheeks were flushed with health. Then the Armistice came, and somewhere in March she found herself demobilised. It was then that she took her attic at Hortons. Her father had died of dysentery in Egypt in 1915, and had left her amply provided for. Her mother, who was of no account, being only a Chipping-Basset and retiring by nature, lived at Dolles Hall, in Wiltshire, and troubled no one. Lois was the only child.
She could, then, spend her life as she pleased, and she soon discovered that there was plenty to do. Her nature had never been either modest or retiring; she had from the earliest possible age read everything that came her way, and five years at Morton House School, one year in Germany, and four months in East Africa with her father had left her, as she herself said, "with nothing about men that she didn't know."