With Polly--although she wasn’t aware of it--her manner was exactly what was needed. She was generally quite indifferent, thinking her own thoughts, absorbed in her own affairs; but she was instantly willing to perform any service, or to talk, or to listen. "Mr. Eddie spoke to me about you," Polly went on. "I have a very high opinion of his judgment, and he seems to think you’re just the person for me." Angelica was delighted. "Well," she said, in her pitifully ungracious way, "it’s kind o’ hard, not knowing your ways or anything; but I guess I’ll be useful." Polly smiled. "Help me to get ready, won’t you? I haven’t been out for such a long time; and the doctor seems to think I should." "This doctor, is it? _Her_ husband?" "Oh, no! He’s not exactly a doctor. He invented a patent medicine, called Dr. Russell’s Old-Time Rejuvenator. That’s why they call him doctor." "I see! But those things are mostly fakes, aren’t they?" Polly didn’t answer. Angelica enjoyed helping her to dress. She liked to open bureau drawers and wardrobes and see the well-ordered and dainty things, all faintly fragrant. She liked fetching the silk stockings, the fine little handkerchiefs, the gloves, all the accessories of a woman of excellent taste and a decent income. Very plain, Polly’s things were, but with a most refined and fastidious plainness. Angelica, seeing and handling them, gained a quite new idea of a lady’s requirements. II "And there we sat," she told her mother later, "all the morning, like a couple of fools, waiting for the car. It got to be lunch-time, and still it hadn’t showed up. I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, waiting there with her hat on and all. ‘I guess she’s decided to keep her automobile for herself to-day,’ I said. ‘It isn’t hers,’ she said. ‘It’s Mr. Eddie’s, for us both to use.’ He’s a generous feller, I think." The excursion was given up. They had lunch down-stairs together, and in the afternoon they went out for a little walk--a tiresome walk for them both. Polly said scarcely a word. Angelica believed her to be angry, and at five o’clock, when at length the motor came back, with Mrs. Russell in it, she looked forward to a row. She received another lesson, for Polly said nothing. She had tea in the library with her mother-in-law, and she was as agreeable and polite as if nothing at all had occurred to vex her. At first this conduct appeared to Angelica cowardly and shockingly hypocritical; but as she watched Polly, she changed her opinion. No, it wasn’t hypocrisy; she didn’t pretend to be pleased and friendly. Her attitude said to Mrs. Russell, in effect: "Do as you please. You can’t annoy me. I remain absolutely undisturbed."