In spite of the cordial words the girl's voice was strange. Rose stared from daughter to mother and back again. “If you were engaged,” she said, rather coldly, “if you would prefer that I come some other time—”
“No, indeed,” cried Lucy, “no other time. Yes, every other time. What am I saying? But I want you now, too. Come right up to my room, Rose. I know you will excuse my wrapper and my bed's being tumbled. I have been lying down. Come right up.”
Rose followed Lucy, and to her astonishment became aware that Lucy's mother was following her. Mrs. Ayres entered the room with the two girls. Lucy looked impatiently at her, and spoke as Rose wondered any daughter could speak. “Rose and I have some things to talk over, mother,” she said.
“Nothing, I guess, that your mother cannot hear,” returned Mrs. Ayres, with forced pleasantry. She sat down, and Lucy flung herself petulantly upon the bed, where she had evidently been lying, but seemingly not reposing, for it was much rumpled, and the pillows gave evidence of the restless tossing of a weary head. Lucy herself had a curiously rumpled aspect, though she was not exactly untidy. Her soft, white, lace-trimmed wrapper carelessly tied with blue ribbons was wrinkled, her little slippers were unbuttoned. Her mass of soft hair was half over her shoulders. There were red spots on the cheeks which had been so white in the morning, and her eyes shone. She kept tying and untying two blue ribbons at the neck of her wrapper as she lay on the bed and talked rapidly.
“I look like a fright, I know,” she said. “I was tired after church, and slipped off my dress and lay down. My hair is all in a muss.”
“It is such lovely hair that it looks pretty anyway,” said Rose.
Lucy drew a strand of her hair violently over her shoulder. It almost seemed as if she meant to tear it out by the roots.
“Lucy!” said her mother.
“Oh, mother, do let me alone!” cried the girl. Then she said, looking angrily at her tress of hair, then at Rose: “It is not nearly as pretty as yours. You know it isn't. All men are simply crazy over hair your color. I hate my hair. I just hate it.”
“Lucy!” said her mother again, in the same startled but admonitory tone.