Sophie did not hear the undertone of laughter and raillery which greeted her arrival. She was quite unconscious that the people on the veranda were interested in her at all, as she walked across the courtyard listening to Mr. Burton's amiable commonplaces.
When Mr. Burton left her in a small room with chintz-covered chairs and dressing-table, Sophie took off her old dust-coat and the pink scarf she had tied over her hair. The mirror was longer than Mrs. Woods'. Her dress looked very crushed when she saw it reflected. She tried to shake out the creases. Her hair, too, was flat, and had blown into stringy ends. A shade of disappointment dimmed the brightness of her mood as she realised she was not looking nearly as nice as she had when she left the Ridge.
Someone said: "May I come in?" and Polly Henty and another girl entered the room.
Polly Henty had just left school. She was a round-faced, jolly-looking girl of about Sophie's own age, and the girl with her was not much older, pretty and sprightly, an inch or so taller than Polly, and slight. She had grey eyes, and a fluff of dry-grass coloured hair about a small, sharp-featured, fresh-complexioned face, neatly powdered.
Sophie knew something was wrong with her clothes the moment she encountered the girls' curious and patronising glances as they came into the room. Their appearance, too, took the skin from her vanity. Polly had on a frock of silky white crêpe, with no lace or decoration of any kind, except a small gold locket and chain which she was wearing. But her dress fell round her in graceful folds, showing her small, well-rounded bust and hips, and she had on silk stockings and white satin slippers. The other girl's frock was of pale pink, misty material, so thin that her shoulders and arms showed through it as though there were nothing on them. She had pinned a pink rose in her hair, too, so that its petals just lay against the nape of her neck. Sophie thought she had never seen anyone look so nice. She had never dreamed of such a dress.
"Oh, Miss Rouminof," Polly said; "mother sent me to look for you. We're just ready to start, and your father wants you to turn over his music for him."
Sophie stood up, conscious that her dress was nothing like as pretty as she had thought it. It stood out stiffly about her: the starched petticoat crackled as she moved. She knew the lace should not have been on her sleeves; that her shoes were of canvas, and creaked as she walked; that her cotton gloves, and even the heavy, old-fashioned fan she was carrying, were not what they ought to have been.
"Miss Chelmsford—Miss Rouminof," Polly said, looking from Sophie to the girl in the pink dress.
Sophie said: "How do you do?" gravely, and put out her hand.
"Oh!... How do you do?" Miss Chelmsford responded hurriedly, and as if just remembering she, too, had a hand.