She had gone in just this way on the morning of the dinner, and her mother, who had quite a full program of her own for the morning, had had breakfast in bed.  Mrs. Salisbury came downstairs at about ten o’clock to find the dining-room airing after a sweeping; curtains pinned back, small articles covered with a dust cloth, chairs at all angles.  She went on to the kitchen, where Justine was beating mayonnaise.

“Don’t forget chopped ice for the shaker, the last thing,” Mrs. Salisbury said, adding, with a little self-conscious rush, “And, oh, by the way, Justine, I see that Miss Alexandra has gone off again, without touching the living room.  Yesterday I straightened it a little bit, but I have two club meetings this morning, and I’m afraid I must fly.  If—­if she comes in for lunch, will you remind her of it?”

“Will she be back for lunch?  I thought she said she would not,” Justine said, in honest surprise.

“No; come to think of it, she won’t,” her mother admitted, a little flatly.  “She put her room and her brothers’ room in order,” she added inconsequently.

Justine did not answer, and Mrs. Salisbury went slowly out of the kitchen, annoyance rising in her heart.  It was all very well for Sandy to help out about the house, but this inflexible idea of holding her to it was nonsense!

Ruffled, she went up to her room.  Justine had carried away the breakfast tray, but there were towels and bath slippers lying about, a litter of mail on the bed, and Mr. Salisbury’s discarded linen strewn here and there.  The dressers were in disorder, window curtains were pinned back for more air, and the coverings of the twin beds thrown back and trailing on the floor.  Fifteen minutes’ brisk work would have straightened the whole, but Mrs. Salisbury could not spare the time just then.  The morning was running away with alarming speed; she must be dressed for a meeting at eleven o’clock, and, like most women of her age, she found dressing a slow and troublesome matter; she did not like to be hurried with her brushes and cold creams, her ruffles and veil.

The thought of the unmade beds did not really trouble her when, trim and dainty, she went off in a friend’s car to the club at eleven o’clock, but when she came back, nearly two hours later, it was distinctly an annoyance to find her bedroom still untouched.  She was tired then, and wanted her lunch; but instead she replaced her street dress with a loose house gown, and went resolutely to work.

Musing over her solitary luncheon, she found the whole thing a little absurd.  There was still the drawing-room to be put in order, and no reason in the world why Justine should not do it.  The girl was not overworked, and she was being paid thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents every month!  Justine was big and strong, she could toss the little extra work off without any effort at all.

She wondered why it is almost a physical impossibility for a nice woman to ask a maid the simplest thing in the world, if she is fairly certain that that maid will be ungracious about it.