"I should like a little time to consider," she said.
"Time to accustom yourself to me, is it not? You can have as long as
you plea-"
"Oh, I can let you know tomorrow," interrupted Alice, officiously.
"Thank you. I will send a note to Mrs. Goff to say that she need
not expect you back until tomorrow."
"But I did not mean--I am not prepared to stay," remonstrated Alice,
feeling that she was being entangled in a snare.
"We shall take a walk after dinner, then, and call at your house,
where you can make your preparations. But I think I can supply you
with all you will require."
Alice dared make no further objection. "I am afraid," she stammered,
"you will think me horribly rude; but I am so useless, and you are
so sure to be disappointed, that--that--"
"You are not rude, Miss Goff; but I find you very shy. You want to
run away and hide from new faces and new surroundings." Alice, who
was self-possessed and even overbearing in Wiltstoken society, felt
that she was misunderstood, but did not know how to vindicate
herself. Lydia resumed, "I have formed my habits in the course of my
travels, and so live without ceremony. We dine early--at six."
Alice had dined at two, but did not feel bound to confess it.
"Let me show you your room," said Lydia, rising. "This is a curious
drawingroom," she added, glancing around. "I only use it
occasionally to receive visitors." She looked about her again with
some interest, as if the apartment belonged to some one else, and
led the way to a room on the first floor, furnished as a lady's
bed-chamber. "If you dislike this," she said, "or cannot arrange it
to suit you, there are others, of which you can have your choice.
Come to my boudoir when you are ready."
"Where is that?" said Alice, anxiously.
"It is--You had better ring for some one to show you. I will send
you my maid."
Alice, even more afraid of the maid than of the mistress, declined
hastily. "I am accustomed to attend to myself, Miss Carew," with
proud humility.
"You will find it more convenient to call me Lydia," said Miss
Carew. "Otherwise you will be supposed to refer to my grandaunt, a
very old lady." She then left the room.
Alice was fond of thinking that she had a womanly taste and touch in
making a room pretty. She was accustomed to survey with pride her
mother's drawing-room, which she had garnished with cheap
cretonnes, Japanese paper fans, and knick-knacks in ornamental
pottery. She felt now that if she slept once in the bed before her,
she could never be content in her mother's house again. All that she
had read and believed of the beauty of cheap and simple ornament,
and the vulgarity of costliness, recurred to her as a hypocritical
paraphrase of the "sour grapes" of the fox in the fable. She
pictured to herself with a shudder the effect of a sixpenny Chinese
umbrella in that fireplace, a cretonne valance to that bed, or
chintz curtains to those windows. There was in the room a series of
mirrors consisting of a great glass in which she could see herself
at full length, another framed in the carved oaken dressing-table,
and smaller ones of various shapes fixed to jointed arms that turned
every way. To use them for the first time was like having eyes in
the back of the head. She had never seen herself from all points of
view before. As she gazed, she strove not to be ashamed of her
dress; but even her face and figure, which usually afforded her
unqualified delight, seemed robust and middle-class in Miss Carew's
mirrors.