The house showed blistered and bare of paint. The open space of yard, green and fresh in the springtime, when she and Kara oftentimes sat outdoors to dream and plan, was now baked brown and sere.
The children playing in the yard behind the tall iron fence looked tired and cross, a little like prisoners to Tory’s present state of mind.
She had come in from camp early in the day and had spent several hours at home with her uncle, Mr. Richard Fenton. Their own house was empty save for his presence. Miss Victoria had gone for a month’s holiday to the sea.
After a talk with her uncle and an hour’s shopping, she was now on her way to call upon Kara.
She saw a mental picture of Kara’s small room on the top floor of the Gray House. How proud Kara had been because she need share her room with no one!
And what a place to be shut up in when one was ill!
For Kara’s sake Tory had endeavored to view this room with Kara’s eyes. Kara loved it and the old Gray House that had sheltered her since babyhood, her refuge when apparently deserted by the parents she had never known.
Victoria Drew was an artist. This did not mean that necessarily she was possessed of an artist’s talent, but of the artist’s temperament. Besides, had she not lived with her artist father wandering about the most beautiful countries in Europe[A] until her arrival in Westhaven the winter before?
If this temperament oftentimes allowed Tory to color humdrumness with rose, it also gave her a sensitive distaste to what other people might not feel so intensely.