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Clad in black bloomers and stockings lay a row of six women flat on the floor, while in front of them stood a woman thin to emaciation, who was evidently talking rapidly. Alexina's mouth opened as widely as her eyes. She had heard of Devil Worship, of strange and awful rites that took place at midnight in wickedest Paris.
Alexina had a good voice, and something was to be done about training it. The Tracys lived next door to them. Duncan Tracy was Stephen's particular chum, and Josephine Tracy was Alexina's dearest friend. Alexina was never lonely when Josie was near by to laugh and chat and plan with. Then, all at once, troubles came. In June the firm of which Mr. Falsom was a member failed.
He's never bad a dishonest thought in his life...has always been, the squarest...but..." "Well?" Alexina's head was very high. It was quite bad enough for Tom Abbott and Judge Lawton...but for his sister... "It's this way, Alexina. People in this world, more particularly men, are just about as honest as circumstances will permit them to be.
Alexina's voice rose above a fresh detonation, "You dare and you think I'm going to ask you whom I shall fall in love with? Fish? What do you call those other shrimps who don't think of anything but drinking and sport, whether they attend to business or not? their fathers make them, anyhow. And you want to marry one of them! They're fish, if you like." The two girls were glaring at each other.
As a matter of course modern bathtubs were installed and gas replaced by electricity. All this made a "hole" in Alexina's bonds, the wedding-present of her brothers, but Mortimer offered no objection, knowing as he did that to achieve his ambition of being master of a house to which fashionable people would come as a matter of course the outlay was imperative.
And Georgy lingered and continued to linger and to blush beneath his already ruddy skin until Harriet, turning, sent him away, for Harriet was a woman of the world and Georgy was the rich and only child of the richest mamma present, and the other mammas were watching. Alexina's eyes followed him as he went, then wandered across the long room to Emily.
To be sure, one never had pictured an Uncle Austen as the possible Prince, but still Emily should have them, if she wanted them. Alexina's gaze fell upon a flower lying on the floor, which had dropped out of Garrard Ransome's buttonhole. The boy loved flowers as most men from the blue grass country do, and the cottage yard was a wilderness of them. She had almost forgotten Garrard's share in this.
Gora's superb bust had disappeared; her face was gaunt, throwing into prominence its width and the high cheek bones. Her eyes were enormous in her thin brown face; to Alexina's excited imagination they looked like polar seas under a gray sky brooding above innumerable dead. There were lines about her handsome mouth, closer and firmer than ever. How she must have worked, poor thing!
The others, if they are imaginative and high-minded, fall in love romantically and marry far too soon; or they capitalize their youth or beauty and marry to the best advantage; or they elect to live a life of serene spinsterhood like Alexina's Aunt Clara, and bring up the family children. A not inconsiderable number take their fling late.
Groome's room as the clock struck two, the old Ballinger clock that had seemed to toll the hours on a deep note of solemn acquiescence for the past six weeks. She crossed the hall and entered Alexina's room without knocking. Mortimer, during the past fortnight, had moved from the room adjoining his wife's to one at the back of the house, lest it should be necessary to call Alexina in the night.
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