"Soap," she said, her lip quivering in spite of herself. The hunt for soap had suddenly assumed enormous proportions—she had a vague idea that, if necessary, she must go on searching for it all night.
"Oh, you poor old tired thing!" her husband said. "There's an old bit of yellow in the bathroom, and here's a spare pillow-case—it will make a beautiful towel. I've got hot water in the basin—it was the dirtiest basin you ever saw, by the way. Come along." He lifted her to her feet.
They washed their hands and faces together in the basin, like children, and dried them on the pillow-case. The candle-end had guttered out when Aileen went back to her room, and she undressed by a faint gleam of moonlight that filtered in through the uncurtained window. The smell of the yellow soap was her last waking memory on her first night in the new home.
CHAPTER VI
A DAY IN THE COUNTRY
The sun was streaming through a threadbare yellow blind when Aileen Macleod awoke next morning. For a moment, dazed with sleep, she wondered what had happened—surely Julia was very late in bringing tea! Then memory came to her, and, with it, the realization that, for the first time in her life, food depended upon her own exertions. Simultaneously came the conviction that never before had she wanted morning tea so much.
She slipped out of bed. Garth and her husband were still sound asleep, but from outside came a clatter of buckets that gave hope that Horrors was astir. The thought of the bath called her. But on examination, the plunge-bath proved to possess an encrusted layer of dirt that defied cold water, and effectually robbed her of any craving to use it. The basin provided minor ablutions—the pillow-case was still damp from its midnight use, but its cleanliness, even though moist, was pleasant. Everywhere that she looked the pitiless daylight revealed dirt which the kindly candle-end had hidden the night before. She drew the skirts of her pretty dressing-gown more closely about her as she went back along the narrow passage towards the locked front door. She threw it open and went out upon the veranda.
"She drew the skirts of her pretty dressing-gown more closely about her and went out upon the veranda."
Before her was loveliness of which she had not dreamed.