CHAPTER V

THE SECOND ENCOUNTER


Portia Stanton was late for lunch; so, after stripping off her jacket
and gloves, rolling up her veil and scowling at herself in an oblong
mahogany-framed mirror in the hall, she walked into the dining-room with
her hat on. Seeing her mother sitting alone at the lunch table, she
asked, "Where is Rose?"

"She'll be down presently, I think," her mother said. "She called out to
me that she'd only be a minute, when I passed her door. Does your hat
mean you're going back to the shop this afternoon?"

Portia nodded, pulled back her chair abruptly and sat down. "Oh, don't
ring for Inga," she said. "What's here's all right, and she takes
forever."

"I thought that on Saturday ..." her mother began.

"Oh, I know," said Portia, "but Anne Loomis telephoned she's going to
bring Dora Wild around to pick out which of my three kidney sofas she
wants for a wedding present. That girl I've got isn't much good, and
besides, I think there's a chance that Dora may give me her house to do.
Her man's stupidly rich, they say, and richly stupid, so the job ought
to be worth eating a cold egg for."