Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/138

 hold accounts, preparatory to paying the June bills.

Is the Countess in? Mrs. Baker inquired, after a perfunctory word or two of greeting, in an unpleasantly nasal, sing-song voice, acquired from much singing of anthems, much intoning of psalms, and much listening to a preacher who chanted his sermon whiningly from beginning to end.

Why yes, Mrs. Baker, why yes, she is, Lou responded, puzzled. Do you want me to call her?

I'd like to have you, Mrs. Baker replied, projecting her shoulders and folding her hands smugly over the spot where her stomach would have been, had she not been too much of a scrag to permit of its existence. Her eyes, behind her glasses, watered still more. The rims were red.

Lou went to the hall and called up to Ella, who was sitting in her bedroom staring at a picture of Tony, photographed on a donkey at Avignon before the Palace of the Popes. Presently the Countess joined the ladies in the library.

The two sisters sat gazing rather apprehensively at this austere female. Although she was a near neighbour, she did not participate in the social life of Lou's circle. Mrs. Baker did not play cards or go to picnics. She had never danced since the day she was born. She prayed a good part of the time and she attended every service at the Methodist Episcopal Church and there were many of them.

After a pause, which seemed so interminable to Ella that she had almost made up her mind to re