Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/100

 May had rushed through the kitchen, her hand to her face, groaning as she ran to her room. Mrs. Bye had prescribed a poultice of hot salt to be bound on the cheek, and Delight had run after her carrying it, her brow dented with concern.

"That's what comes of these overheated halls and draughts," observed Mrs. Jessop, when she encountered her with the lower half of her face swathed in a bandage, the poultice giving a lifelike imitation of a swelling. "I suppose it's one of your unders, seeing your uppers are not your own. Well, take it a little easy this afternoon. Delight can do some of your work. You don't look very good."

In truth, May's eyes had an anxious expression. She looked forward with some dread to the call from Ada. Yet, intrenched behind the bandage, her thin lips had a malicious twist of pleasure. This was play-acting, she thought, and it was fun to fool Ada, fun to fool everybody, and she wasn't going to display her face with her mouth all sunk in. She did not sit at the table with the others at dinner but carried a bowl of soup and bread to the scullery, and lounged in a rocking-chair to eat. She had a devil-may-care, picnic feeling as she flung fragments to the fowls that collected outside the door. Suddenly she wasn't afraid of Ada any more. Lack of sleep, the fight with Delight, the accident had combined to stimulate her brain. She was a hotbed of desires and plans, as she swung to and fro in the rocker which gave forth a loud crack with each backward plunge, mingling a spice of danger to its soothing.

At four Ada was announced at the kitchen door by Charley in a pompous voice:

"Mrs. Masters to call on Miss Phillips."

Charley liked announcing this strapping young woman