Janet arguing with the fish man, Janet experimenting with the telephone the lawyer had put in the hall, Janet simultaneously polishing a window and singing.
"Ouch—" Felicia would pull imaginary rheumatism through an imaginary casement, "Oh weel—oh weel—to look at the du-urt! it's sickenin'! weel—
You tak the high road
And I'll tak the low road
And I'll be in Scotland before ye,
Oh, I and my true luv shall never be—
oot of the way below there—summat is drapping—Th' De'il tak my bit of soapie!—
'On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.'"
The folk who lived in the rear alley used to lean, sill-warming fashion on their windows, the children shrilly whistling the chorus, the men forgetting their pipes, the women sniffling as women do when they hear old ballads, for of course once Felice had started "pretending" she didn't stop. A moment after she'd been Janet she'd be Marthy, dear, lean, grizzled old Marthy, dead these many years, singing,
"In the gloaming
Oh, my darling,
Think not bitterly of me—"
It never occurred to any of them, least of all Felice, how many, many hours she spent "pretending." Two evenings a week at chess with Uncle Peter—(thank heaven Dudley Hamilt came no more—!) Sunday afternoons with the Wheezy's gentle old fellow sufferers, almost all the other evenings in the garden. She was using ounce after ounce of her precious strength, pouring out her self to the whole world around her, making it laugh, making it weep, making it thrill, making it—work.
She stopped one morning to see Justice Harlow. He stared at her as though it were the first time he had ever seen her. She no longer wore eccentric garb. Dulcie had divided with her. She had a simple hat and a serge frock. She was shabby, to be sure, but it was no longer a ridiculous shabbiness. She was pale and wan, even paler than when she had first come to him but the timidity, the uncertainty, had gone. Her eyes were deeper. They shone like jewels; the softened outlines of her profile were thinner, clearer; her beautiful mouth had grown firm and a bit of gray showed in her hair. She was altogether adorable, like a wee wren after a stormy day. The stilted phrases were slipping away. She spoke more alertly. Bits of Dulcie's lingo were creeping into her speech. But she still answered with a literalness that took one's breath away.
"Now whadda ye know about that?" asked the Justice all unconscious that he was colloquial.