She wrapped her dressing-gown closer round her, and prepared to depart.
"I couldn't keep her in my room," she said; "I've two girls camping on the floor. Besides, she would begin confessing everything, and I am certain that I should smack her. Pretend that you are asleep. If she cries, don't notice. Good night, my child."
She patted Susan on the head, looking as if she would have kissed her, but not being accustomed to caresses, did not quite know how.
Then she wheeled round to receive the late visitor, holding up her finger, and crying—"Hush!" very loud.
Susan lay with her face turned from the light and her eyes shut, as she had been bidden. She heard Fifine, after some careful whispering, close the door and make her way down; she heard a smothered sobbing from the improvised bed that almost blocked the chamber;—and then she heard a stealthy noise in the room, and opened her eyes. On the wall she could see the shadow of a person struggling into her clothes, and evidently about to fly. Some instinct made the girl spring up and fling herself against the door.
"Oh! Oh!" said the strange woman, tottering. "Let me out!"
Susan looked her in the face.
"If you want to go," she said, "I will call the Duchess."
The stranger began to cry. She was thin and fair, with a faded skin and unhappy eyes, outstared by a blaze of jewels. Susan remembered seeing her at the ball. Kilgour had called her the Shop Window.
"He's waiting for me. I must go with him," she cried, worked up to a pitch of agitation that deprived her of self-control.