Rising, she walked to the window and flung the curtains wide. The view of park and clustering, frost-spangled cedars was intersected sharply with vertical bars of iron and she gave a little involuntary gasp of dismayed surprise at the discovery that the narrow balcony beyond her windows was stoutly enclosed, like a huge cage.
The same trapped look of terror which had leaped to the girl's eyes on the previous day when she faltered at the door of the limousine returned anew, but she steeled herself against the sudden tide of emotion which all but overwhelmed her and moved resolutely to her mirror. The birthmark flamed back angrily at her, but she touched it almost caressingly as if the knowledge of it gave her strength, and an enigmatic smile wreathed her lips.
She breakfasted alone in the sunny morning room, attended by Welch, whose scrutiny of her at her arrival seemed to have satisfied him, for his bearing was that of a mere well-trained automaton. Betty observed him surreptitiously as he moved about the room, his heavy-jowled face and massive bulk incongruous with the light, springing, silent tread and his shifting eyes obsequiously lowered.
"If you please, miss," he coughed apologetically, as she rose, "Mrs. Atterbury will see you in the library."
Betty submissively followed him to a door at the left of the entrance hall. A voice bade her enter and she found her employer seated at an official-looking desk, already deeply engrossed in her correspondence. Her dress was severely plain, her hair coiffed low over the lobeless ears and to the girl's shy morning greeting she turned a face waxen in its pallor but inscrutable as on their first meeting.
"You are not late, my dear," she responded to Betty's contrite query. "I rose unusually early and have been sorting my mail in order to show you just what your task will be."
She motioned to a chair by the desk, and Betty eyed with inward misgiving the formidable heap of unopened envelopes which still remained.
"Any letters which may be marked with a small cross in the corner, like this, for instance," Mrs. Atterbury held one out for inspection, "you may put aside. The rest you are to open and read, dividing them into two separate piles, business and purely social, for me to glance over later. Begging letters, even from personal friends for charity subscriptions, belong in the financial stack. Do you think you can manage now with these?"
"Yes, Mrs. Atterbury. Do you wish me to reply to them?"
"At my dictation. I will come back in an hour and we can go over them together." Mrs. Atterbury rose. "My seamstress will be here this afternoon to measure you for some new frocks."