"Hello, little girl!" she repeated.
Kate's instinctive hatred of this woman, founded partly on what Lillian Drew obviously was, but more on the certainty that she had some close and secret connection with David's life, made Kate tremble. A year before the wrathful words that besought to pass her lips would have burst forth unchecked. But she controlled herself.
"What do you want?" she demanded.
To pain a person who stirred her antagonism, this twenty uncurbed years had made one of Lillian Drew's first instincts. She had observed before that Kate disliked her and stung under her "little girl;" consequently to inflict her presence and the phrase on Kate was to gratify instinct.
She walked with a slight unsteadiness to David's chair, sat down and smiled baitingly up into Kate's face. "I've just come around to have a visit with you, little girl. Sit down."
Kate grew rigid. "If you want Mr. Aldrich, he's not here."
"Oh, yes, he is. But I don't want him just yet. I want to have a visit with you." She looked Kate up and down. "Well, now, for such a little girl, you're not so bad."
Kate's eyes blazed. "I tell you he's not here. There's no use of your waiting."
"I'm in no hurry at all. But you're too thin. You've got to put on ten or fifteen pounds if you expect to catch his eye."
Kate pointed to the door. "Get out of here!—with that breath of yours!"