A soft-footed, soft-voiced maid, with perfect manners, responded to Cicely’s summons. She said: “Please come in, Miss Adair. If you don’t mind, will you go right up to Miss Jeanette’s room? She is expecting you, and gave those orders. I will show you the way.”
She led Cis up a long flight of stairs—the house was remarkably high-ceiled—its steps low, mounting at the easiest possible angle, yet with a broad mahogany handrail to aid in progress. There was a deep recessed landing more than half-way up, an arched window lighting it, a splendid old clock standing back against the wall in its corner.
The maid knocked on a door that stood slightly ajar at the rear of the hall on the second floor, and instantly pushed it open.
“Miss Adair, Miss Jeanette. I brought her right up to you as you told me to,” she said.
The maid stepped back and withdrew down the hall. A girl about Cicely’s age arose from a low couch on which she had been reclining, and said, speaking low, lifelessly, as if speaking were an effort:
“Please come in, Miss Adair. You were kind to come. Will you take this chair?”
She drew forward slightly a deep chair, softly cushioned in dark blue, and herself dropped back on the couch, sidewise among its piled pillows, not lying down, but resting on her elbow. Yet, listless though her attitude was, her left hand clutched the corner of a pillow, wrinkling it tautly in a nervous grasp.
She was dark eyed, dark haired; Cis thought that she had never seen anyone so pale; her olive skin, naturally beautiful in tint and texture, was almost greenish in its livid tint; there were great circles under her eyes which looked sunken, as if they had been staring wide open into the dark for sleepless nights. Cis forgot her embarrassment, her uneasiness as to what might be before her because of her share in what had befallen this girl, in an overwhelming pity for the grief which had thus wrecked her loveliness.
Miss Lucas suddenly spoke, clasping and twisting her fingers, her hands thrust forward on her knees, her eyes burning as they stared at Cis.
“I’ve seen you before,” she said.