Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/235

Rh eyebrows, and dyed hair, and not a day under forty. Oh, she's a mess. You remember her, Richard, don't you?"

"Yes, I remember her. Awful dame! Horrible creature!"

Behind Laurel lay only water. On either side of her lay only water. She could not turn and run. She watched her mother choose the gravel path that led to the pier. ("She is! She's coming this way, girls!" delightedly ejaculated Deborah.) Then suddenly Laurel exclaimed, "I've lost something."

"Lost something?"

"My watch!" She held up an empty wrist. "It must have dropped off in the canoe."

She turned back immediately. Richard turned back, too.

"Shan't we all come and look?" Deborah offered.

"No, please," Laurel called back.

"You all go along," Richard ordered. "We'll find it."

"I think it must be among the cushions somewhere," said Laurel.

All during the torturing ten or fifteen minutes when she and Richard shook the cushions and pillows, each separate one, and then ran their hands into every possible corner and crevice of the canoe where a watch might lodge, and even searched between the loosely fitted boards of the pier, Laurel kept a constant watch of the shore. She saw her mother walk slowly down the path toward the lake, arrive at the water's edge, hesitate, and then sit down on one of the rustic seats built on either side