She finished her tirade by
thrusting some money into Kedzie's hand and clamoring:
"Get into your clothes and get out of my sight."
Rage made Miss Silsby generous. She paid Kedzie an extra week and
her fare to New York. Kedzie had no pocket to put her money in. She
carried it in her hand and laid it on the table in the tent as she
bent to whip her lithe form out of her one dripping garment.
The other nymphs followed her into the tent and made a Parthenonian
frieze as they writhed out of their tunics and into their petticoats.
They gathered about Kedzie in an ivory cluster and murmured their
sympathy--Miss Silsby not being within ear-shot.
Kedzie blubbered bitterly as she glided into her everyday things,
hooking her corsets askew, drawing her stockings up loosely, and
lacing her boots all wrong. She was still jolted with sobs as she
pushed the hat-pins home in her traveling-hat.
She kissed the other girls good-by. They were sorry to see her go,
now that she was going. And she was very sorry to go, now that she
had to.
If she had lingered awhile Miss Silsby would have found her there
when she relented from sheer exhaustion of wrath, and would have
restored her to favor. But Kedzie had stolen away in craven
meekness.
To reach the trade-entrance Kedzie had to skirt the accursed pool of
her destruction. Charity Coe was near it, seated on a marble bench
alone. She was pensive with curious thoughts. She heard Kedzie's
childish snivel as she passed.
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