“That is the one I think. It goes perfectly with your coloring. You must let Pikey do your hair. And you shall have my nicest necklace.”
At the word “necklace” Girlie shuddered again. The prison gates loomed before her eyes.
“And you shall have my new Pinet slippers if they’ll fit you. Now do be sensible. This evening you must simply play up for all you are worth.”
It was all very well, but nature has set a limit to what flesh and blood can endure. Stage fright had once more fixed its talons on Girlie. “Oh, no, I can’t face them to-night,” she said miserably.
She was reckoning, however, without the dæmonic force that encompassed her. Its power over weak vessels was truly remarkable. And among these Pikey was foremost. The Werewolf, after all, was no more than a lath painted to look like iron and none knew that quite so well as her mistress. She ordered the disgruntled old woman about with the genial arrogance she might have bestowed on a favorite dog. And Pikey, mumbling under her breath, was only too ready to do her bidding
As for Miss Cass, she found herself in the midst of her toilet before she could quite realize what was taking place. Elfreda superintended it. “Yes, the pink one, Pikey. And those stockings, I think.”
As ever, she was curiously impersonal but her taste was sure, she could bring her mind down to details and it was inflexible. Miss Cass was clay in her hands. Yet even now there was just one matter in which the unfortunate Deputy was able to muster a mind of her own. She insisted that no alien fingers should touch her hair.
“Better let Pikey, hadn’t you? She’s used to hair. She’s really rather clever with it.”
Here it was, however, that Miss Cass made her stand. She took the terrible, long-handled brush gently but firmly from Pikey’s grasp. “I am used to doing it myself—I am really.”
Pikey’s sniff of disdain confirmed that statement. Elfreda was loth to yield the point, but time was fleeting. And Miss Cass, hairbrush in hand, was displaying such skill that it seemed vain to contest it.