“You understand me,” said Vivienne. “Now go to bed,” and waving the disturber of her peace over the threshold she noiselessly closed the door.
CHAPTER V
A CONVERSATION WITH JUDY
All of Vivienne’s unhappiness passed away with her night’s sleep. On waking up to the bright, still beauty of a clear December morning her naturally high spirits rose again.
“The Armours have really little power to afflict me,” she said, getting out of bed with a gay laugh. “My attachment to them is altogether a thing of duty, not affection. If they do not care for me I will leave them. That is a simple matter,” and going to the window she drew in a long breath of the fresh morning air and noted with delight the blueness of the sky, the whiteness of the snow, and the darkness of the sombre evergreens before the house, where a number of solemn crows sat cawing harshly as if asking for some breakfast.
“Ah, it is cold,” she exclaimed, drawing her gown about her, “and I am late. I must hurry.”
When she at last left her room the breakfast bell had long since rung. She speedily made her way down the staircase, glancing critically through open doors as she passed them.
“The furnishings are too gorgeous, too tropical,” she murmured; “and flaming colors are everywhere. Evidently the person who furnished this house had a barbaric fondness for bright shades.”
On arriving in the lower hall she paused before the dining-room door. She could hear the tinkling of china and murmur of voices within. Then with a composure not assumed but real she drew aside the curtain and entered the room.
Mrs. Colonibel, handsome and imposing in a bright blue morning gown, sat behind the silver coffee urn at the head of the table. She knew that Vivienne had entered yet she took up a cream jug and gazed as steadfastly into its depths as though she expected to find a treasure there.
The corners of Vivienne’s lips drooped mischievously. “For all exquisite torture to which one can be subjected,” she reflected, “commend me to that inflicted on woman number two who enters the house of woman number one who does not want her.”