Vivienne surveyed a small empty room.
“Wouldn’t you like this for a bedroom?” said Judy excitedly. “We can share this big room in common. You can read and work here, for I am sure you and I would pull well together, and like me you will just hate sitting downstairs all the time.”
Vivienne smiled at her. “I should disturb you—and besides I have been put in the room below.”
“You needn’t mind leaving it,” said Judy. “Mamma will be delighted to get you out of it; it is one of the guest rooms.”
“Oh, in that case,” said Vivienne, “I will accept your invitation. You will speak to Mrs. Colonibel?”
“I will go now,” said Judy, hurrying from the room. Vivienne sat down by the fire and dropped her head upon her hands. “I am not likely to be here long,” she said, “so it doesn’t matter.”
“Mamma is delighted,” she heard presently in a shrill voice. “I knew she would be. There is some furniture that can be put in the room, and when the servants finish their work below they will come up and arrange it. What fun we shall have——”
Vivienne looked kindly at the little cynical face.
“’Till our first row,” said Judy, letting her crutch slip to the floor. “I suppose I shall hate you as I do every other body who has a straight back.”
Vivienne did not reply to her, and she went on peering restlessly into her face. “Well, what do you think of us?”