ridiculous.




VIII


In the morning she was dressed and had returned from breakfast
before her mother stirred. The latter moved sharply, brought an arm
up over her head, and swore. It was a long while before she got up
or spoke again, and Linda never remembered her in a worse temper.
When, finally, she came into the room where the breakfast-tray was
laid, Linda was inexpressibly shocked--all that her mother had
dreaded about her appearance had come disastrously true. Her face
was hung with shadows like smudges of dirt and her eyes were netted
with lines.

Examining the dishes with distaste she told Linda that positively
she could slap her for letting them bring up orange-juice. "How
often must I explain to you that it freezes my fingers." Linda
replied that she had repeated this in the breakfast-room and perhaps
they had the wrong order. Neither her mother nor she said anything
more until Mrs. Condon had finished her coffee and started a second
cigarette. Then Linda related something of Mr. Moses Feldt's call on
the evening before. "He cried right into his handkerchief," she
said, "until I thought I should sink."

Mrs. Condon eyed her daughter speculatively. "Now if you were only
four years older," she declared, "it would be a good thing. He was