no
returning sound of them in search of some forgotten thing; a long enough
interval passed so that it was safe to infer that there would not be,
but Judith lay as her mother had left her, as still as if her headache
were really authentic, her questioning eyes on the rose-shaded light.

There was much that might have increased her mother's concern for her in
her face, if you could interpret it fully; sometimes the eyes suggested
a fair proportion of the hundred years her mother had credited her with,
sometimes there was dawning fear in them, and sometimes an inconsequent,
gipsy light; sometimes her soft lips trembled pitifully, and sometimes
they smiled. Always it was a lovely face, rose flushed and eager in the
rosy light, and always something was evident which was enough to account
for her mother's concern and for more concern than her mother was
capable of feeling; Miss Judith Devereux Randall was growing up.

Whatever questions occupied her answered themselves in a satisfactory
way at last, even an amusing way, for her smile had come to stay and
her eyes were dancing, when she jumped up from the chaise-longue at
last, turned on more lights, opened closets and bureau drawers all at
once, dropped various hastily chosen and ill-assorted articles on the
immaculate counterpane of her bed, and began to dress.

She dressed without a glance into the mirror, and without need of it, it
appeared, when she stood before it at last, pulling a left-over winter
tam over rebellious curls which she had made no attempt to subdue. She
had buttoned herself hastily into the dress she had taken off last, a
tumbled organdy, and thrown a disreputable polo coat over it, white like
the cap, but of more prehistoric date, but on her slender person these
incongruous garments had acquired a harmony of their own, and become a
costume somehow. It might not have withstood a long or critical
inspection, but it was not subjected to one. Youth, in its divinely
suited garb of white, regarded itself with grave eyes for one breathless
minute, flushed and coquetted with itself for another, and then was gone
from the mirror. Judith turned off the lights and stole out of the room,
and downstairs.

There was nothing in the dark and empty house to frighten her. It must
have been fear of whatever was before her that made her slip so softly
across the hall, and tremble and stand still when the door chain
rattled. The door was open at last. With a soft, inarti