Kedzie caught Mr. Charles's eye. He spoke to her sharply:
“Well?”
He evidently thought her somebody looking for a job as bundle-carrier. She was pretty, but there were tons of pretty girls. They bored Mr. Charles to death. He had a whole beagle-pack of them to care for.
Kedzie poked at him Ferriday's letter of introduction addressed to Lady Powell-Carewe. Mr. Charles took it and, not knowing what it contained, bore it into the other room without asking Kedzie to sit down.
He reappeared at the door and bowed to her with great amazement. She slipped into a chaotic room where there were heaps of fabrics thrown about like rubbish, long streamers of samples littering a desk full of papers.
A sumptuous creature of stately manner bowed creakily to Kedzie, and Kedzie said, trying to remember the pronunciation:
“Lady Pole-Carrier?”
A little plainly dressed woman replied: “Yes, my child. So you're the Adair thing that Ferriday is gone half-witted over. He's just been talking my ear off about you. Sit down. Stop where you are. Let me see you. Turn around. I see.” She turned to the stately dame. “Rather nice, isn't she, Mrs. Congdon? H'mm!” She beckoned Kedzie to come close. “What are your eyes like?” She lorgnetted the terrified girl, as if she were a throat-specialist. “Take off that horrid hat. Let me see your hair. H'mm! Rather nice hair, isn't it, Mrs. Congdon?—that is, if she knew how to do it. Let me see. Yes, I get your color, but it will be a job to suit you and that infernal movie-camera. It kills my colors so! I have to keep remembering that crimson photographs black and cream is dirty, and blue and yellow are just nothing.”
Mr. Charles came in to say that Mrs. Noxon was outside. Kedzie recognized the great name with terror. Lady Powell-Carewe snapped:
“Tell the old camel I'm ill. I can't see her to-day. I'm ill to everybody to-day. I've taken a big job on.”