“Things?” I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten all about them. I had intended to get them as I returned from my stroll in Kensington Gardens; but what had taken place there had driven them right out of my head. “I meant to get them as I came back, but—I didn’t.”
“Meant to get them as you came back! What do you mean? Did I not send you out for them, and for them only?”
“Surely, Norah, you have not come back without my stockings? You know perfectly well that I can’t wear those shoes without them; nothing I have will do at all.—And where’s my matching?”
Lilian had appeared out of the dining-room. She had bought a new pair of brown shoes, which she wanted to wear that evening, and it seemed that nothing she had in the way of hose was of quite the proper shade. She had given me a scrap of material which was the shade. It seemed that I had not only forgotten her stockings, but lost the matching. She let me have it when she became aware of the fact. Lilian is tall; and—sometimes—stately; and is considered smart; but she can be disagreeable, and most abusive. In fact, they can all of them be that.
“Really, Norah, you are the most stupid person I ever met. Some people might suppose that you could not be so stupid as you look; but, I will do you the justice to admit that you appear to try your very best to be.”
That was a pleasant thing to say! While I was searching about for something nice and stinging to reply, Doris came out of the morning-room on to the top of the stairs, and she began:
“I suppose, Norah, that you have brought my fringe-nets, because I simply can’t do my hair until I have them. I’ve just torn my very last.”
Then she supposed wrong, because I had not; and so I told her. The bathroom door was opened, and Audrey’s voice was heard. I never knew anyone for baths like Audrey. She likes to have three or four a day, with the water about up to boiling-point, and oatmeal in it; and there she lies and stews. What good she thinks it does her is beyond me. I am sure it doesn’t make her skin any whiter. It couldn’t. It’s perfectly white and as smooth as satin already. I only wish mine was like it.
“Is that Norah? Has she brought that ribbon for my bodice? Because if she has, I’ll put it in at once.”
There was no ribbon to be got out of me, neither for her bodice, nor for anything else, as Eveleen, who had followed Lilian out of the dining-room, proceeded to explain.