The strange girl’s vivid hair seemed ready to ignite, it was so blazingly red! Her eyes, a queer green, glared at the frightened Nancy, and altogether the intruder’s attitude was one of defiance and challenge.

“Humph!” she sniffed. “So this is why you don’t go out with Rosa; you like trying on her clothes when no one’s around!”

Nancy flushed scarlet. So sudden had come the accusation, and perhaps because of her secret state of mind concerning the party cape, that she felt like one struck down by an enemy. Somehow the other girl seemed to tower above her, although Nancy was quite tall. The glare of those malicious green eyes seemed to take root in Nancy’s own, and above all that red hair—yet Nancy had previously always loved red hair!

For some moments she did not attempt to reply to the cruel accusation. Then her defense158 flashed back, true to her instincts of high-born honesty.

“I have a perfect right to try on my cousin’s things if I wish,” she said loftily. “But what right have you here?”

“Keep your voice down,” demanded the other in angry but subdued tones. “There’s no need to get the house dogs after us.”

“House dogs?”

“Yes, that old Margot—don’t know why they didn’t call her Magot,” scolded the girl, “she’s more like a watch dog than a woman. But I’m in a hurry. You needn’t mind mentioning my call,” she sneered, “and then, if I’m sure of that, I won’t bother telling Rosa about your—party!”

The inference was so contemptible that Nancy shrank away instinctively. She had already carefully placed the innocent cape back on its chair, and was ready to lower the lights, but this last act she deferred. She felt safer with that high-strung creature under good, clear lights, at least.

But somehow as she looked at her, the subtle danger of Orilla’s secret meetings with159 Rosa flooded into Nancy’s mind. For her, Nancy, to make an active enemy of Orilla would surely mean that much more danger to Rosa, whereas any possible compromise might at least insure Nancy some knowledge of the other girl’s affairs.

She was thinking fast. Not that the term idealist (applied to her by Betty) in any way entered into her reasoning, but simply because she was Nancy of the disciplined mind, taught to think twice when in any serious predicament. And more than that, she had been cautioned by her mother, always to put down the proud spirit of revenge and in its place to plant courage. Courage to do that which was hardest, as it would invariably prove to be that which was best.

To understand Nancy as she was acting now, it is necessary to understand all this, although to her it was merely doing the thing that seemed best.

“Do you mean,” she said very slowly, “that you do not want Rosa to know you have been here?”

“Yes,” snapped the girl, “just like you160 don’t want her to know you’ve been here.”

“But I don’t care; why should I?” Nancy could not help that flare of defiance.

“You were trying on her new clothes, weren’t you?”

“What’s wrong about that?”

“Don’t try to sneak, I’m in a hurry. Is it a bargain or isn’t it?”

“What?” blurted Nancy, now a little bit frightened lest her chance to help Rosa might suddenly vanish.

“You keep your mouth shut and I’ll do the same!”

The vulgarity of the girl’s words offended Nancy’s sense of respectable English, but she knew better than to show her resentment.

“But, did you bring a message or something?” she faltered. “Won’t they know you have been here?”

“That’s my business, you just ’tend to yours and don’t worry about mine,” snapped the stranger.

“It doesn’t make any difference to me, of course, that you’ve been here—Orilla,” Nancy almost choked on the name, but was161 determined to show some good feeling which she did not in the least feel—“and, if it suits you better, I don’t see why I should tell Rosa.”

“That’s sporty!” exclaimed the girl, a complete change of her queer face, with its yellow skin and other peculiar colorings of hair and eyes, giving her a decidedly different expression. “No use being enemies, when we’re both outsiders,” she said next. “I must run along. Don’t worry about party capes; they never make folks happy!” and she was gone.

Her last words, although almost whispered, left an unpleasant ring in Nancy’s ears.

“Don’t worry about party capes,” she had said, almost as if she had discovered Nancy’s secret. And then: “They don’t make folks happy!”

Orilla seemed glad of that. Evidently she didn’t want party capes or other luxuries, of which she herself had been deprived, to make folks happy.

Nancy moved cautiously. She felt as if she were still in danger—of what she could not guess. But since she had so inadvertently162 made an ally of Orilla, instead of an enemy, she knew she must be careful.

Bu............