"What did she say, little one?" asked Judy.
"She was very stilly," answered Otoyo shyly. "She spoke nothing whatever. I thought it more wisely to departing go."
The laugh that was raised at this lucid report restored good humor in the company.
A vehicle called for Mr. and Mrs. Kean at a quarter before ten to take them down into the village, and it was not long before every light was out in Queen's Cottage but one in a small single room in an upper story. Here, in front of the mirror over the dressing table, sat a black-eyed girl in a red silk dressing gown.
"Judith," she said fiercely to her image in the glass, "can't you remember that you are too poor to insult people any longer?"
Then she rolled up Mrs. Kean's note into a little ball and flung it across the room with such force that it hit the other wall and bounded back again to her feet, and she ground it under her heel. After this exhibition of impotent rage, she put out her light and flung herself into the bed, where she tossed about uneasily and exclaimed to herself:
"I won't be poor! I won't work. I hate this hideous little room and I loathe Queen's Cottage. I wish I had never been born."
Nevertheless, Judith Blount did humble herself next day to accept Mrs. Kean's invitation. At the dinner she was sullen and quiet, but she could not hide her enjoyment of the melodrama later.
The one taste which she had in common with her brother Richard was an affection for the theatre, no matter how crude the acting, nor how hackneyed the play.
But the insulting letter that she had sent to Judy Kean widened the breach between her and the Queen's girls, and no amount of effort on her part after that could bridge it over.