While she stood in the doorway of this room, solemnly regarding it, her father said over her shoulder:
"You won't need both those big trunks here, I'm sure. I'll store them somewhere in the studio. Covered with drapes, they won't be noticed. I can't imagine what that woman packed them with."
"My dresses," replied Alora. "Even then, I left a lot at the Voltaire, for the maids to sell or give away. Mamma used to send them to the Salvation Army."
"Two trunks of dresses ought to last for a good many years," he remarked in a reflective tone.
"Oh, no indeed," said Lory. "Miss Gorham was about to engage a dressmaker for me when—when—you said we'd go away. I'm growing fast, you know, and I was to have a dozen or fifteen summer frocks made, and a lot of lingerie."
"Then we moved just in time to save that expense," he declared, setting his stern jaws together. "There's been a terrible waste of money through that woman Gorham. We're well rid of her."
He turned away to the studio and the child followed him there. He turned on the electric lights, which were not very bright, and Alora took a look at the workroom and thought it seemed more comfortable than the other rooms of the flat.
Her father began dusting and arranging half a dozen paintings of various sizes, mounted on stretchers. None was finished; some were scarcely begun. Lory tried to see what they represented. Perhaps she had inherited from her mother a bit of artistic instinct; if so, it was that which prompted her to shrug her small shoulders slightly and then turn away to the window.
In the dimly lighted street outside a man drove up with the baggage. Mr. Jones had purchased for himself in Chicago a new trunk—a small and inexpensive one—and there were two big trunks and a suitcase belonging to Alora. After these had been carried up and placed in the studio—the only room that would hold them—her father said:
"We will go out now and get some dinner. You won't need your coat, for the restaurant is just around the corner."