"Is that well so, missy?" she asked. "Missy look wonderful
to-night--wonderful!"
Beatrice examined herself carefully and critically, without any show of
impatience. Only a close observer would have noticed that her eyes had the
strained, concentrated look of a person whose thoughts are centered
elsewhere than on the immediate subject.
"Yes, that will do," she assented, after a moment. "You have done extra
well to-night. You can go."
"Not help missy with dress?"
"No, you can go. I shall only want you again when I come back."
The ayah fidgeted with the garments that lay scattered about the room, but
an imperative gesture hastened her exit, and she slipped silently from the
room, drawing the curtains after her.
Beatrice watched her departure in the glass, and then, turning in her
chair, looked at the languid, exhausted figure upon the couch.
"Now, if you have anything to say, mother, say it," she said. "We are
quite alone."
"I have a great deal to say," Mrs. Cary began, in a tone of extreme
injury, "and first of all, I must ask you not to interrupt me in the way
you did just now before the--the what-do-you-call-it?--the ayah. I can not
and will not stand being corrected before my own servants."
"I did not correct you," Beatrice returned coldly. "I stopped you from
making disclosures to ears which know enough English to understand more
than is good for either of us, and whose discretion is on a par with that
of our late friend, Mary Jane.
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