How dare that sort of person take so much upon herself!
The soul of the lady of Laxton, however, had been fired by the ravishing garment on the bed. And as the whole situation was poised so delicately that it seemed to hang upon a thread, the mere fact that she could muster courage enough for a definite lead sufficed to determine the course of events. Pikey continued to gaze at Miss Impudence with sour disfavor, but she was not slow to realize how small was the option left to her now. Moreover, it was the will of her mistress. And at that moment and in those circumstances, with her own sin of omission so heavy upon her, it would surely be wise to ensure it.
Nevertheless, the Werewolf eyed Miss No-Class with a ferocity that was positively frightening. “Sit down in that chair next the fire so that I can take off your shoes.” The tone went with the truculent eyes.
Quivering with a secret excitement that was more than half fear, the deputy daughter of the Marquis of Carabbas obeyed. Pikey knelt and came savagely to grips with a tarnished right foot. It seemed to minister to her inward rage that the shoes of the Deputy were obviously—too obviously!—cheap and that their heels were shod clumsily with rubber. And as if this were not enough for the aristocratic soul of Pikey, she discovered that certain concealed parts of the Deputy’s stockings had been freely darned. With a sniff of frank disgust she took up an elegant pair of bedroom slippers which had been set to warm in front of the fire and very reluctantly put them on the plebeian feet of Miss No-Class.
She did put them on, however. Then she rose like a sibyl, slowly and grimly from her knees, looked Miss No-Class straight in the eyes and said, “The first thing for you, my lady, is a bath.”
If a studied and ferocious irony had the power to slay, the Deputy-daughter of the Marquis of Carabbas could hardly have survived this first application of her title. The earnestly intelligent student of The Patrician flushed to the roots of her hair. Did this Ogress of a creature mean it for an insult? Did the woman wish to suggest that one who had been educated at the Laxton High School for Young Ladies, who had passed the Oxford Preliminary, who was the daughter of a solicitor, whose insight into human nature had been commended by the Saturday Sentinel, had the woman the effrontery to mean as much as her disgusted tone implied!
Girlie Cass mustered all her reserves. “I don’t really think I need a bath.” It was a colorable imitation of the tone of Miss Pond, the admired head-mistress of the Laxton High School.
Part of the answer of the Ogress was a snort; the other part was, “You won’t wear that dress unless you do have one.”
Miss Cass wisely concluded that it would be unworthy of human dignity to sustain the argument. Besides, the Ogress had already produced an entrancing dressing gown of pink silk. “Put on this,” she said, ruthlessly, “while I go and get your bath ready.”
Pikey thereupon collected a prince among sponges, a superb loofah, a recherché cake of scented soap, and grimly retired to the next apartment, leaving the Deputy, tingling with excitement yet raging with mortification, to shed her plebeian garments one by one.