But it troubled Druse. She thought of it
as she sat one afternoon, gravely crotcheting a tidy after an East Green
pattern, before it was time for the children to be back from school. It
was a warm day in October, so warm that she had opened the window,
letting in with the air the effluvia from the filthy street, and the
discordant noises. The lady in the flat above was whipping a refractory
child, whose cries came distinctly through the poor floors and
partitions of the Vere De Vere.
Suddenly there was a loud, clumsy knock at the door. She opened it, and
a small boy with a great basket of frilled and ruffled clothes, peeping
from under the cover, confronted her.
"Say, lady," he asked, red and cross, "Is yer name De Courcy?"
"No, it ain't," replied Druse. "She's the back flat to the right, here.
I'll show you," she added, with the country instinct of "neighboring."
The boy followed her, grumbling, through the long narrow hall, and as
Druse turned to go, after his loud pound on the door, it suddenly flew
open. Druse stood rooted to the ground. A dirty pink silk wrapper, with
a long train covered with dirtier lace, is not a beautiful garment by
full daylight. Yet to untrained eyes it looked almost gorgeous,
gathered about the handsome form. Miss De Courcy had failed to arrange
her hair for the afternoon, and it fell in heavy black folds on her
shoulders, and her temples were bandaged by a white handkerchief.
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