He was gone a long time, during which, for a while, she paced the floor,
unaffectedly wringing her hands and contemplating herself and her
garments in the laundry looking-glass.
At intervals she tried to turn on the water, hoping for a few drops at
least; at intervals she sat down to wait for him; then, the inaction
becoming unendurable, musing goaded her into motion, and she ascended to
the floor above, groping through the dimness in futile search for
Clarence. She heard him somewhere in obscurity, scurrying under furniture
at her approach, evidently too thoroughly demoralized to recognize her
voice. So, after a while, she gave it up and wandered down to the pantry,
instinct leading her, for she was hungry and thirsty; but she knew there
could be nothing eatable in a house closed for the summer.
She lifted the pantry window and opened the blinds; noon sunshine flooded
the place, and she began opening cupboards and refrigerators, growing
hungrier every moment.
Then her eyes fell upon dozens of bottles of Apollinaris, and with a
little cry of delight she knelt down, gathered up all she could carry,
and ran upstairs to the bathroom adjoining her own bedchamber.
"At least," she said to herself, "I can cleanse myself of this dreadful
coal!" and in a few moments she was reveling, elbow deep, in a marble
basin brimming with Apollinaris.
As the stain of the coal disappeared she remembered a rose-colored
morning gown reposing in her bedroom clothespress; and she found more
than that there--rose stockings and slippers and a fragrant pile of
exquisitely fine and more intimate garments, so tempting in their
freshness that she hurried with them into the dressing room; then began
to make rapid journeys up and downstairs, carrying dozens of quarts of
Apollinaris to the big porcelain tub, into which she emptied them,
talking happily to herself all the time.
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