“There's still another piece of news I'm bursting with. I can't believe you don't know. But you haven't asked—haven't mentioned it in your letters. And Zanin told me he was wholly out of touch with you. It is hard to believe that you don't know it. For this bit of news is about you. The other that I spoke of first, is about me—a smaller matter. Lord, but you have buried yourself. Sue! You certainly went the whole thing.
“Zanin, by the way, and that Belgian girl—Heléne something or other; you know, works in pastels, those zippy little character portraits, and dancing girls (didn't she do you, once?)—well, they're inseparable. It bothers me a little, seeing them always together at the Muscovy and the Parisian and Jim's. After all the stirring things you and he did together. She has spruced him up a lot, too. She's dressing him in color schemes—nice earthy browns and greens. Yes, J. Z. dresses amazingly well now. He has picked up a little money in these new business connections of his. But I resent the look of it—as if he had forgotten you. Though if he hadn't I should be crudely, horribly jealous.
“If I do come out I'll do my best to look respectable. Tell you what—I'll put on the good suit I had made especially to propose to you in. Remember? The time I lost my nerve and didn't say the words. Haven't worn it since, Sue. And the hat—shoes—cane. I'll wear 'em all! No one could be more chastely 'suburbaniacal' than Henry Bates will appear on this significant occasion. Even the forbidding aunt will feel a dawning respect for the erstwhile Worm—who was not a Worm, after all, but a chrysalis, now shortly to emerge a glittering, perfect creature.
“Think not unkindly of your abandoned Villager,
“Henry B.”
At the ending she chuckled aloud. The letter had carried her far from the plain room in a rather severe little house which in its turn conformed scrupulously in appearance to the uniformity that marked the double row of houses on this suburban street. They were all eyes, those houses.
She tried to reconstruct a mental picture of that remarkable costume of the Worm's. But it was difficult to remember; she had seen it only the once, months ago, back in the spring. Would he look overdressed? That would be worse than if he were to wear the old bagging gray suit, soft collar and flowing tie—and the old felt hat. For the Street might think him one of her mysteriously theatrical acquaintances from the wicked city, in which event a new impetus would be given to the whispering that always ran subtly back and forth between the houses that were all eyes.
There was other chuckling in the room. The two children stood before her—Miriam, the elder, a big-eyed girl with a fluff of chestnut hair caught at the neck with a bow; Becky, small for her seven years, with tiny hands and feet and a demure mouth. Miriam had about head and shoulders the Spanish scarf that Sue had worn in Zanin's Carmen ballet at the Crossroads; Becky had thrust her feet into the red leather boots of Sue's Russian costume. When they found their half-sister's eye upon them the two giggled irresistibly.
Sue felt a warm impulse to snatch them both up in her arms. But she sobered. This was old ground. Mrs. Wilde, as the wife and widow of an evangelical minister, felt strongly against dancing. Sue had promised to keep silent regarding this vital side of her own life.
Becky shuffled humorously to Sue's knee. Miriam came to her side, leaned against her shoulder, and gently, admiringly stroked her thick short hair, now grown to an unruly length but still short enough to disclose the fine outline of Sue's boyish yet girlish head.