“But Evelyn has not gone up-stairs. Has she let her go alone?”
“Just what I should expect of your cousin,” said Lady Frances.
Audrey crossed the hall and went up to Evelyn’s side.
“Do you notice that Sylvia has gone up-stairs?” she said. “Have you let her go alone?”
“Yes. Don’t bother,” said Evelyn.—“What are you saying, Bob?—that you can cut the figure eight in——”
Audrey turned away with an expression of disgust. A moment later she said something to her friend Juliet and ran up-stairs herself.
“What are we to do with Evelyn?” was her thought.
The same thought was passing through the minds of almost all the matrons present; but Evelyn herself imagined that she was most fascinating.
Audrey went to Evelyn’s bedroom. There she saw Sylvia already arrayed in her ugly, tattered, and untidy dress. She looked like a different girl. She was pinning her battered sailor-hat on her head; the color had left her cheeks, and her eyes were no longer bright. When she saw Audrey she pointed to the muslin dress, which was lying neatly folded on a chair.
“I am going to take it home; it shall be washed, and you shall have it back again.”