"Everything is changed," she said to Dowie and Mademoiselle who
sat on either side of her bed, sometimes pressing her head down
onto a kind shoulder, sometimes holding her hand and patting it.
"I shall be afraid of everybody forever. People who have sweet
faces and kind voices will make me shake all over. Oh! She seemed
so kind--so kind!"
It was Dowie whose warm shoulder her face hidden on this time,
and Dowie was choked with sobs she dared not let loose. She could
only squeeze hard and kiss the "silk curls all in a heap"--poor,
tumbled curls, no longer a child's!
"Aye, my lamb!" she managed to say. "Dowie's poor pet lamb!"
"It's the knowing that kind eyes--kind ones--!" she broke off,
panting. "It's the KNOWING! I didn't know before! I knew nothing.
Now, it's all over. I'm afraid of all the world!"
"Not all, cherie," breathed Mademoiselle.
She sat upright against her pillows. The mirror on a dressing
table reflected her image--her blooming tear-wet youth, framed in
the wonderful hair falling a shadow about her. She stared at the
reflection hard and questioningly.
"I suppose," her voice was pathos itself in its helplessness, "it
is because what you once told me about being pretty, is true. A
girl who looks like THAT," pointing her finger at the glass, "need
not think she can earn her own living. I loathe it," in fierce
resentment at some bitter injustice.
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