Now her head was cooler. Indeed it had been cool for a month. She saw Cairns as an average man, neither good nor evil, a son of his father and the seed thereof, bound by a strict code of honour and a lax code of morals. She saw him as a dull man with the superficial polish that even the roughest pebble acquires in the stream of life. He had found her at low water mark, stranded and gasping on the sands; he had picked her up and imprisoned her in this vivarium to which he alone had access, where he could enjoy his capture to the full. 'And the capture's business is to get as much out of the captor as possible, so as to buy its freedom back.' This was Victoria's new philosophy. She had dexterously induced Cairns to give her a thousand a year. She knew perfectly well that she could live on seven hundred, perhaps on six. Besides, she played on his pride. Cairns was after all only a big middle-aged boy; it made him swell to accompany Victoria to Sloane Street to buy a hat, to the Leicester Gallery to see the latest one-man show. She was a credit to a fellow. Thus she found no difficulty in making him buy her sables, gold purses, Whistler etchings. They would come in handy, she reflected, 'when the big bust-up came.' For Victoria was not rocking herself in the transitory, but from the very first making ready for the storm which follows on the longest stretch of fair weather. 'Yes,' said Victoria again to the mirror, 'you mean business.' The door opened and almost noiselessly closed. Mary brought in a tray covered with a clean set of silver-backed brushes, and piled up the other ready to take away. She put a water can on the washstand and parsimoniously measured into it some attar of roses. Victoria stepped out into the middle of the room and stood there braced and stiff as the maid unlaced and then tightened her stays. 'What will you wear this evening, mum?' asked Mary, as Victoria sat down in the low dressing chair opposite the swinging glass. 'This evening,' mused Victoria. 'Let me see, there's the _gris perle_.' 'No, mum, I've sent it to the cleaner's,' said Mary. Her fingers were deftly removing the sham curls from Victoria's back hair. 'You've worn it four times, mum,' she added reproachfully. 'Oh, have I? I don't think. . . . oh, that's all right, Mary.' Victoria reflected that she would never have a well-trained maid if she finished sentences such as this. Four times! Well, she must give the Major his money's worth. 'You might wear your red Directoire, mum,' suggested Mary in the unemotional tones of one who is paid not to hear slips. 'I might. Yes. Perhaps it's a little loud for the Carlton.' 'Yes, mum,' said Mary without committing herself. 'After all, I don't think it is so loud.' 'No, mum,' said Mary in even tones. She deftly rolled her mistress' plaits round the crown. Victoria felt vaguely annoyed. The woman's words were anonymous. 'But what _do_ you think, Mary,' she asked.