Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/68

 That night neither Lanice nor Pauline could sleep. Wide awake one thought of working on a magazine for a great publisher, the other of women—women working in the South for the slaves, for temperance in evil-smelling bar-rooms, for a right to control the destiny of their children—women in hoops and laced with whalebone and buckram—who some time, God help us, should be as free as the envied males.

Lanice heard the Park Street Church clock strike three and then, almost before she realized she had been to sleep, it struck eight. She leaped out of bed, flung up the window, and found the day dull and cold for summer. She rapidly laced and buttoned herself into her clothes, choosing for the exterior a moss-green dress lavishly banded with mink. Her face was pale and the lavender shadows about her eyes that had haunted her since childhood showed against the pallor. Mr. Fox would not think her so charming as he had last night. He would not want her about, even as a captive artist. Absurd. It was her skill with a pencil that interested him, not her ladylike graces.

At breakfast Pauline, in 'half corset' and morning cap, lingered over a pile of correspondence. There were tumbled yellow ribbons in her cap. Pauline, who despised finery, often would suddenly indulge herself and then always overdid it. The bows were too big, too yellow, and too obviously ripped off a dress and pinned to the cap.