She went upstairs to change her face after a tempestuous interview with William, and, expectant of a Mary strident in jazz coloring, changed also her frock to a sedate gray which should contrast the lady with the Lady. Then Mary came, with hair wind-tossed, and round her lips were marks as if she were a child sticky with toffee (but that was because when you pluck grass on Staithley Edge and press it to your cheek and kiss it, it leaves behind traces of the smoky livery it wears), apologizing for her plain traveling dress, looking so unlike Gertrude’s idea of the beauty-chorus queen who had captured Rupert that immediately she was off on a new trail and saw in Mary a tool made for her through which to work on Rupert and after all to bring about the sale of Hepple-stall’s. She could manage this smudge-faced piece of insignificance and she could manage a Rupert who had been caught by it. Her spirits rose, and their happiness seemed to her no longer offensive but imbecile. Later on, she wondered why she forgot that the business of an actress was to act. She meditated ruefully upon the vanity of human hopes and the fallibility of first impressions, and she had no doubt but that Mary, for some dark purpose of her own, had counterfeited insignificance. Mary hadn’t, as a fact, acted, but she had thought of Mary Ellen Bradshaw and of Jackman’s Buildings and Staithley streets as the door of the Hall opened to her, and she had continued to think of Mary Ellen Bradshaw through the few moments when Gertrude was greeting her. She didn’t know that the mourning grass of Staithley Edge had left its mark on her face; if she had known, she would have felt more insignificant still, but she had washed since then, she had kissed Rupert in their bedroom in Staithley Hall and her effect now upon Gertrude was that of the bottle marked “Drink me” upon Alice in Wonderland. Gertrude had drunk of no magic bottle, but she dwindled before Mary. It was disconcerting to an intriguer who had so lately seen Mary as her pliant instrument, but “Pooh! some actress trick,” she thought, making an effort to believe that she dominated the table. “I’m afraid you will find Staithley very dull,” she said, “but we shall all do our best for you.” “Thank you,” said Mary. “It’s exciting so far.” “Yes. It must be strangely novel to you. Of course, I never go into the town. One needn’t, living in the Hall; but I’m forgetting. I shan’t be living here.” “Oh, you will, aunt,” said Rupert. “We went up on the Edge to have a look at it all, and we decided--it arose out of a suggestion of Mary’s--to build a house up there. You see, uncle, you’re the Head. The Hall is naturally yours and aunt’s.” “Naturally? It’s your property, Rupert.” “Then that settles it. We’ll get some one to run us up a cottage on the Edge quite quickly. Really a cottage, I mean. I shall be working as a workman and I ought to live as one. I shan’t do that, but it won’t be a mansion pretending to be a cottage.”