CHAPTER II
After vainly waiting a few minutes for him to reappear, Joan Daisy reassured herself and returned to her home, where she immediately opened the door of her mother's room and stood listening for the sound of her mother's breathing.
It was deep and slow and regular, but, following a habit of apprehension which had held her since she was a little girl when she learned that veronal was dangerous, Joan Daisy moved to the side of the bed and gazed at her mother in the dim light from the front room.
Her mother's fair, flaccid face was composed in its usual relaxed petulance; but Joan Daisy thought of that only as "mamma's expression." She saw that her mother was "all right." The veronal bottle was in its usual place on the stand beside the bed; there was the usual emptied glass. Joan Daisy retreated softly, closed the door, and in the bathroom she washed out the towels which Ket had used.
They were linen towels, new and expensive and—as she considered while she handled them—unpaid for. Practically everything in the apartment, except her own clothing and the garments which she herself bought for her mother, was new and expensive and unpaid-for. The rent of the apartment was paid; for Joan Daisy was able to manage most of it; but she had no hope of paying for its equipment.
Its procurement had been no act of hers, but had been arranged without her knowledge, as such transactions habitually were, by her father.
He was her stepfather, actually—he who had been her especial playfellow and protector as long as she could
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