“That was a risky laugh,” she told her reflection, “but it was worth the price. Only, I didn’t see Hazel, and I am sure she looked stunning. Her voice sounded that way.”
Quickly she slipped out of the robe—got the pins and buckles out of her hair, went to the alcove and dipped into the cold cream jar; then she breathed easier.
“If some one calls me now I can appear to have been taking a treatment. Any girl may daub on cold cream,” she decided calmly. In five minutes more she was almost herself again, although the tint of her cheeks was a trifle high, and the lines under her eyes a little crooked. Also she looked a lot prettier than usual.
“I just wonder what it is uncle wants aunt to tell me,” she ruminated, feeling livelier and more like herself than she had since coming out to Sandford. “Well, I’d like to know what happened to Aunt Lottie’s money, of course, but since I’ve stood it this long I guess I can hold out a while longer. And even Hazel is quite human. She kissed Aunt Hattie four times.”
Her uncle’s voice at the foot of the stairs confirmed her guess that he would presently be searching for her.
“Coming!” she called back, fastening the last snapper of her Jersey waist as she went.
And on her way down she composed an excuse for her aunt’s certain questions as to where she had been while Hazel was in the room.
“Poor little Aunt Hattie!” she was thinking, “I wonder was my own mother like her?”
Gloria was much impressed with the scene she sensed, rather than viewed from her seclusion in the closet.
“I wonder if my mother would have been like that—to me?” she asked herself again next morning.
Strange what channels of inspiration affection can open up. Gloria was now resolved to agree with her aunt, and not to obstruct any further her peculiarities in humoring Hazel.
“She’s all she’s got and dad would do as much for me, just as I would do as much for dad.” This was not exactly a choice way of expressing her sentiments, but no critic could object to the sentiments thus expressed.
In the cozy way a girl has of chumming with her own confidence, Gloria went on musing. She was moving her things back to the guest room. As she had been the first guest entertained in it she felt a sort of natural proprietorship over the rather small room, furnished with odds and ends left from other quarters, and therefore presenting the nondescript effect of a household orphan.