“What did he say?” Julie cut in on him.
“Nodding at all. Maestra! He take the letter and read it, while I wait. Then he turn away.”
She turned heavily back into the house.
Ignoring school—she had now been absent two consecutive days from that depleted institution—she grimly resolved to attend to her own concerns. Miss Hope, of course, would not fail to take note of this defection, but Julie, bitter over the careless methods of the Department which had helped to bring about this débâcle, was reckless of consequences.
First of all there was Purcell! She meant to tackle him single-handed. Indeed there was no one that she could think of from whom she could have derived support in this situation. If she had been a man she might have knocked him down and settled the issue at once. She wanted, she thought, to do something inexpressibly violent to him.
She was brushing out her hair before putting it up to go out, when a shadow loomed in the doorway. There stood Nemecia Victoria swaying like a purple passion flower.
Usually Nemecia was clothed in silken variations of the spectrum, with cob-web laces across her bosom. To-day with a winding-cloth bound round the body, her beautiful bronze limbs bared, she looked like a statue.
Nemecia crossed the room. She took the silvery coif of Julie’s hair in her hands and caressed it. “My poor Señorita, with hair like this, to live so meanly—at the mercy of men!”
An acute curiosity shot through Julie. This was the Nemecia who knew the secret hearts of men. Just whose secrets? A temptation came to her to get Nemecia to speak. But no, she would not lift that curtain.
“You wouldn’t live as I live?” Julie queried.