This eBook was produced by Carolyn Derkatch.
byGeorge Gibbs
[Illustration: "'You must flirt, Mr. Markham-and make prettyspeeches-'"]
Titine glanced at the parted curtains and empty bed, then at the clock,and yawned. It was not yet eight o'clock. From the look of things, shewas sure that Miss Challoner had arisen and departed for a morning ridebefore the breaking of the dawn. She peered out of the window andcontracted her shoulders expressively. To ride in the cold morning airupon a violent horse when she had been out late! B—r! But then,Mademoiselle was a wonderful person—like no one since the beginning ofthe world. She made her own laws and Titine was reluctantly obliged toconfess that she herself was delighted to obey them.
Another slight shrug of incomprehension—of absolution from suchpractices—and Titine moved to the linen cabinet and took out somefluffy things of lace and ribbon, then to a closet from which shebrought a soft room-gown, a pair of silk stockings and some very smallsuede slippers.
She had hardly completed these preparations when there was the sound ofa door hurriedly closed downstairs, a series of joyous yelps from adog, a rush of feet on the stairs and the door of the room gave waybefore the precipitate entrance of a slight, almost boyish, femaleperson, with blue eyes, the rosiest of cheeks and a mass of yellowhair, most of which had burst from its confines beneath her hat.
To the quiet Titine her mistress created an impression of bringing notonly herself into the room, but also the violent horse and the whole ofthe out-of-doors besides.
"Down, Domino! Down, I say!" to the clamorous puppy. "Now—out withyou!" And as he refused to obey she waved her crop threateningly andat a propitious moment banged the door upon his impertinent snub-nose.
"Quick, Titine, my bath and—why, what are you looking at?"
"Your hat, Mademoiselle," in alarm, "It is broken, and your face—"
"It's a perfectly good face. What's the matter with it?"
By this time Miss Challoner had reached the cheval glass. Her hat wassmashed in at one side and several dark stains disfigured her cheek andtemple.
"Oh, I'm a sight. He chucked me into some bushes, Titine—"
"That terrible horse—Mademoiselle!"
"The same—into some very sticky bushes—but he didn't get away. I goton without help, too. Lordy, but I did take it out of him! Oh,didn't I!"
Her eye lighted gaily as though in challenge at nothing at all as sheremoved her gloves and tossed he