"I don't know how to get them off!" he cried,
his voice breaking nervously. Judith was down on her knees, inspecting
with a competent curiosity the fastenings, which were of a new
variety.
"It's _easy_!" she said. "You just lift this little catch up and turn
it back, and that lets you get at the knot." As she spoke, she acted,
her rough brown little fingers tugging at the silken laces. "How'd
you ever _get_ it fastened," she inquired, "if you don't know how to
unfasten it?"
"Oh, Pauline puts my shoes on for me," explained Arnold. "She dresses
and undresses me."
Judith stopped and looked up at him. "Who's Pauline?" she asked,
disapproving astonishment in her accent.
"Madrina's maid."
Judith pursued him further with her little black look of scorn. "Who's
Madrina?"
"Why--you know--your Aunt Victoria--my stepmother--she married my
father when I was a little baby--she doesn't want me to call her
'mother' so I call her Madrina.' That's Italian for--"
Judith had no interest in this phenomenon and no opinion about it.
She recalled the conversation to the point at issue with her usual
ruthless directness. "And you wouldn't know how to undress yourself
if somebody didn't help you!" She went on loosening the laces in a
contemptuous silence, during which the boy glowered resentfully at the
back of her shining black hair. Sylvia essayed a soothing remark
about what pretty shoes he had, but with small success.
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