“I was writing a letter,” said Sheila in a low voice, beginning to wash the plates and shrinking at the pain of scalding water.

“Hmp!  Writing letters at this hour!  One of your friends back East?  I thought it was about time somebody was looking you up.  What do your acquaintance think of you comin’ West with Sylly?”

Now that she was at liberty to put a “stroke” of work; on Babe’s dress, “Momma” seemed in no particular hurry to do so.  She stood in the middle of the kitchen wrapping her great bony arms in her checked apron and staring at Sheila.  Her eyes were like Girlie’s turned to stone, as blank and blind as living eyes can be.

Sheila did not answer.  She was white and her hands shook.

“Hmp!” said “Momma” again.  “We aren’t goin’ to talk about our acquaintance, are we?  Well, some folks’ acquaintance don’t bear talkin’ about; they’re either too fine or they ain’t the kind that gets into decent conversation.”  She walked away.

Sheila did her work, holding her anger and her misery away from her, refusing to look at them, to analyze their cause.  It was a very busy day.  The help Babe usually gave, and “Momma’s” more effectual assistance, were not to be had.  Sheila cleaned up the kitchen, swept the dining-room, set the table and cooked the supper.  Her exquisite French omelette and savory baked tomatoes were reviled.  The West knows no cooking but its own, and, like all victims of uneducated taste, it prefers the familiar bad to the unfamiliar good.

“You’ve spoiled a whole can of tomatoes,” said Babe.

Sylvester laughed good-humoredly:  “Oh, well, Miss Sheila, you’ll learn!” This, to Sheila, whose omelette had been taught her by Mimi Lolotte and whose baked tomatoes, delicately flavored with onion, were something to dream about.  And she had toasted the bread golden brown and buttered it, and she had made a delectable vegetable soup!  She had never before been asked to cook a meal at Number 18 Cottonwood Avenue and she was eager to please Sylvester.  His comment, “You’ll learn,” fairly took her breath.  She would not sit down with them at the table, but hurried back into the kitchen, put her scorched cheek against some cold linoleum, and cried.

By the time dinner was over and more dishes ready to be washed, the cook’s wounded pride was under control.  Her few tears had left no marks on her face.  Babe, helping her, did not even know that there had been a shower.

Babe was excited; her chewing was more energetic even than usual.  It smacked audibly.

“Say, Sheila, wot’ll you wear to-night?” she yelled above the clatter.

“Wear?” repeated Sheila.

“To the dance, you silly!  What did you think I meant—­to bed?”

Sheila’s tired pallor deepened a little.  “I am not going to the dance.”

“Not going?” Babe put down a plate.  “What do you mean?  Of course you’re going!  You’ve gotta go.  Say—­Momma, Pap, Girlie”—­she ran, at a sort of sliding gallop across the oilcloth through the swinging door into the dining-room—­“will you listen to this?  Sheila says she’s not going to the dance!”