When the time came for them to leave the café, Tommy helped both ladies to put on their jackets. The human warmth of the crowded terrace sheltered from the mountain breeze by the awnings had rendered wraps unnecessary. But outside they discovered the air to be chill. Clementina first was invested—with the slightest hint of hurry. She turned and saw Tommy snatch Etta’s jacket from a far too ready waiter’s hand. In his investiture of Etta there was the slightest hint of lingering. In the nice adjustment of the collar their fingers touched. The girl raised laughing eyes which his met tenderly. A knife was thrust through Clementina’s heart and she closed her thin lips tightly to dissimulate the pain.
Etta came into her room that night under the vague pretence of playing maid and helping her to undress. Her aid chiefly consisted in sitting on the bed and chattering out of a bird-like happiness.
“It’s all just heaven,” she declared. “I wish I could show you how grateful I am. I’ve had nothing like it all my life. When I get home I won’t rest till I’ve teased father into getting a car—he’s so old-fashioned you know, and thinks his fat old horses and the family omnibus make up the only equipage for a gentleman. But I’ll worry him into a car, and then we’ll go all over Europe. But it won’t be quite the same without—without you, Clementina, dear.”
Clementina wriggled into an old flannel dressing jacket and began to roll a cigarette.
“I thought you were going to be a hospital nurse.”
“So did I,” said the girl, a shadow flitting swiftly over her face. “But I don’t seem to want to now, I should hate it.”
“What has made you change your mind?” asked Clementina, after the first puff of smoke.
Etta, on the bed, nursed her knee. Her fair hair fell in a mass about her shoulders. She looked the picture of innocence—a female child Samuel out of an illustrated Family Bible.
“The sight of you, darling, at Lyons Station.”
“Little liar!” murmured Clementina.