Her poor little chin dropped until it disappeared
altogether in the folds of her plump neck, and she remained
speechless, stricken, immobile as a wax figure in an exhibition.
"Aunt Jane," I said, "you must come right back to shore with me."
I spoke calmly, for unless you are perfectly calm with Aunt Jane
you fluster her.
She replied only by a slight gobbling in her throat, but the other
woman spoke in a loud voice, addressed not to me but to the
universe in general.
"The Young Person is mad!" It was an unmistakably British
intonation.
This then was Miss Violet Higglesby-Browne, I saw a grim, bony,
stocky shape, in a companion costume to my aunt's. Around the
edges of her cork helmet her short iron-gray hair visibly bristled.
She had a massive head, and a seamed and rugged countenance which
did its best to live down the humiliation of a ridiculous little
nose with no bridge. By what prophetic irony she had been named
Violet is the secret of those powers which seem to love a laugh at
mankind's expense.
But what riveted my eyes was the deadly glare with which hers were
turned on me. I saw that not only was she as certain of my
identity as though she had guided me from my first tottering steps,
but that in a flash she had grasped my motives, aims and purposes,
and meant once for all to face, out-general and defeat me with
great slaughter.
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