At last she began to fear that Julian would never come back, and by a
sudden impulse she wrote to him a short, very ill-spelt letter, hoping he
would come to tea with her on a certain afternoon. On the day mentioned
she waited in an agony of expectation. She had put on his black dress,
removed all traces of paint and powder from her face, remembering his
former request and her experiment, tricked Jessie out in a bright yellow
satin riband twisted into a bow almost larger than herself, and bought
flowers--large ones, sunflowers--to give to her dingy room an air of
refinement and of gaiety. Amid all this brilliancy of yellow satin and
yellow flowers she waited uneasily in her simple black gown. The day was
dull, not wet, but brooding and severe, iron-grey, like a hard-featured
Puritan, and still with the angry peace of coming thunder. The window was
open to let in air, but no air seemed to enter, only the weariful and
incessant street noises. Jessie wriggled about, biting sideways with
animation to get at her yellow adornment, and pattering around the
furniture seeking stray crumbs, which sometimes eluded her for a while
and, lying in hidden nooks and corners, unexpectedly rewarded her
desultory and impromptu search.
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