All through, however, or rather since Miss Purcell had returned from school, Dora and her little cousin Lucy had been allowed to meet. Lomax saw his daughter depart on her visits to Half Street, in silence; Purcell, when he first recognised her, hardly spoke to her. Dora believed, what was in fact the truth, that each regarded her as a means of keeping an eye on the other. She conveyed information from the hostile camp--therefore she was let alone.
Dora was still bending over her work when a well-known tap at the door startled her meditations.
Lucy put her head in, and, finding Dora alone, came in with a look of relief. Settling herself in a chair opposite Dora, she took off her hat, smoothed the coils of hair to which it had been pinned, unbuttoned the smart little jacket of pilot cloth, and threw back the silk handkerchief inside; and all with a feverish haste and irritation as though everything she touched vexed her.
'What's the matter, Lucy?' said Dora, after a little pause. At the moment of Lucy's entrance she had been absorbed in a measurement.
'Nothing!' said Lucy quickly. 'Dora, you've got your hair loose!'
Dora put up her hand patiently. She was accustomed to be put to rights. It was characteristic at once of her dreaminess and her powers of self-discipline that she was fairly orderly, though she had great difficulty in being so. Without a constant struggle, she would have had loose plaits and hanging strings about her always. Lucy's trimness was a perpetual marvel to her. It was like the contrast between the soft indeterminate lines of her charming face and Lucy's small, sharply cut features.
Lucy, still restless, began tormenting the feather in her hat.
'When are you going to finish that, Dora?' she asked, nodding towards the frame.
'Oh it won't be very long now,' said Dora, putting her head on one side that she might take a general survey, at once loving and critical, of her work.
'You oughtn't to sit so close at it,' said Lucy decidedly; 'you'll spoil your complexion.'
'Oh, yes, you have, Dora--that's so silly of you. You aren't sallow a bit. It's pretty to be pale like that. Lots of people say so--not quite so pale as you are sometimes, perhaps--but I know why _that_ is,' said Lucy, with a half-malicious emphasis.