“What were you doing all by yourself out there in the dark?” she asked accusingly. “We thought you had run away or something.”
“Goodness, where would I run to?” asked Billie, as they went upstairs together arm in arm. “There’s no place to run except into the ocean, and I’d rather wait for that till I have my bathing suit on.”
They found Mrs. Danvers and Laura and Vi in a large room as pretty and comfortable as the room downstairs, though not quite so elaborate. Laura and Vi were busily engaged in making themselves entirely at home.
Laura had her hat off and was fixing her hair in front of a mirror and Vi was hanging up her coat in the closet.
“You see there’s a connecting door between these two rooms,” Mrs. Danvers said in her pleasant voice; “so that you girls can feel almost as if you were in one room.”
Then as she caught sight of Billie and Connie in the doorway she beckoned to them and disappeared into the next room, and with a laughing word to Laura and Vi they followed her.
This was the room that she and Connie were to occupy, Billie found, and she looked about her at the handsome mahogany furniture and dainty dressing table fixings with interest.
But she was even more interested in seeing what Connie’s mother looked like in the light. She was not a bit disappointed, for Mrs. Danvers’ looks entirely matched her voice.
Her eyes were a wide laughing hazel, set far apart and fringed with dark lashes. Her hair, for she had not worn a hat, was a soft brown, and the night wind had whipped a pretty color into her face.
“She is awfully pretty. Not as pretty as my mother,” Billie thought loyally, “but awfully pretty just the same.”