"What unspeakably lazy servants I must have! I shall send them away at once! Just as soon as that woman has brought my breakfast I shall say to her,
"'You are an abom-in-able housekeeper, pack your bags and go!'"
She had heard Mademoiselle D'Ormy send a servant away once. It gave a splendid sense of superiority to think that she was going to do it herself this time. She pulled her travel-stiff body over the edge of the bed, and grimacing as she swung her pavement-sore feet to the floor, she wrapped the lovely old dressing-gown about her and opened the door into the hall. She could not think of any other way in which to summon a servant whose name she did not know and so she whistled clearly as she sometimes did when she wanted to call Bele from the farther end of the orchard.
The house seemed filled with sounds, mutterings, babblings, little cries, the heavy whirr of the sewing machines, the splintering clatter of Tony, who was chopping his wares by the basement door—it seemed impregnated with odors, smudgy, burning, unsavory, smoky smells. She whistled again.
An unkempt head, a man's head, was thrust from the nursery door, in the quick glance with which she looked at him and beyond him she seemed to see a score of persons. There were not really so many of them, merely a slovenly woman who was pedaling the sewing machine with a baby tumbling at her feet, an eight-year-old who sat on the window ledge pulling bastings while a half-grown girl cooked something on a stove that had been propped in front of the fireplace.
Zeb's phrase—"filthy dirty heathen" trembled on Felicia's lips, her eyes burned hotly. She grew furiously angry. Her breast was heaving, her bare foot tapped impatiently on the chilly floor, but the man slammed the door before she could speak.
She stepped resolutely into the hall, she whistled again, this time imperiously.
No one answered.
She crossed to the bathroom beside the nursery. She was grimly determined now, she would bathe herself and dress and go down to the kitchen and speak at once to the servant. The bathroom door was slightly open but the skylight was so dusty that she could scarcely see. She put down her hand to turn the faucet and drew back in dismay. Her tub was already filled—with coal!
And behind her a voice ejaculated,