“You keep your mouth shut and I’ll do the same!”
The vulgarity of the girl’s words offended Nancy’s sense of respectable English, but she knew better than to show her resentment.
“But, did you bring a message or something?” she faltered. “Won’t they know you have been here?”
“That’s my business, you just ’tend to yours and don’t worry about mine,” snapped the stranger.
“It doesn’t make any difference to me, of course, that you’ve been here—Orilla,” Nancy almost choked on the name, but was determined to show some good feeling which she did not in the least feel—“and, if it suits you better, I don’t see why I should tell Rosa.”
“That’s sporty!” exclaimed the girl, a complete change of her queer face, with its yellow skin and other peculiar colorings of hair and eyes, giving her a decidedly different expression. “No use being enemies, when we’re both outsiders,” she said next. “I must run along. Don’t worry about party capes; they never make folks happy!” and she was gone.
Her last words, although almost whispered, left an unpleasant ring in Nancy’s ears.
“Don’t worry about party capes,” she had said, almost as if she had discovered Nancy’s secret. And then: “They don’t make folks happy!”
Orilla seemed glad of that. Evidently she didn’t want party capes or other luxuries, of which she herself had been deprived, to make folks happy.
Nancy moved cautiously. She felt as if she were still in danger—of what she could not guess. But since she had so inadvertently made an ally of Orilla, instead of an enemy, she knew she must be careful.