The girl sank into a deep easy chair and crossed her knees with deliberation. She was paler than usual; she could not deny a certain lassitude. As her mother spoke she put up her hand to hide an incipient yawn, and then turned her suffused eyes upon that lady, with the effect of granting a weary but necessary attention. “You have decided to ask them?” she asked, with absent-minded interrogation. “Whom?” “How ridiculous you are, Rhoda! The Viceroy and Lady Scansleigh, of course! As if there could be the slightest doubt about anybody else! You will want to know next what I intend to ask them to. I have never known a girl take so little interest in her own wedding.” “That brings us to the point,” said Rhoda. An aroused suspicion shot into Mrs. Daye’s brown eyes. “What point, pray? No nonsense, now, Rhoda!” “No nonsense this time, mummie; but no wedding either. I have decided—finally—not to marry Mr. Ancram.” Mrs. Daye sat upright—pretty, plump, determined. She really looked at the moment as if she could impose her ideas upon anybody. She had a perception of the effect, to this end, of an impressive _tournure_. Involuntarily she put a wispish curl in its place, and presented to her daughter the outline of an unexceptionable shoulder and sleeve. “Your decision comes too late to be effectual, Rhoda. People do not change their minds in such matters when the wedding invitations are actually——” “Written out to be lithographed—but not ordered yet, mummie.” “In half an hour they will be.” “Would have been, mummie dear.” Mrs. Daye assumed the utmost severity possible to a countenance intended to express only the amenities of life, and took her three steps toward the door. “This is childish, Rhoda,” she said over her shoulder, “and I will not remain to listen to it. Retraction on your part at this hour would be nothing short of a crying scandal, and I assure you once for all that neither your father nor I will hear of it.” Mrs. Daye reached the door very successfully. Rhoda turned her head on its cushion, and looked after her mother in silence, with a half-deprecating smile. Having achieved the effect of her retreat, that lady turned irresolutely. “I cannot remain to listen to it,” she repeated, and stooped to pick up a pin. “Oh, do remain, mummie! Don’t behave like the haughty and hard-hearted mamma of primitive fiction; she is such an old-fashioned person. Do remain and be a nice, reasonable, up-to-date mummie: it will save such a lot of trouble.” “You don’t seem to realise what you are talking of throwing over!” Mrs. Daye, in an access of indignation, came as far back as the piano. “Going down to dinner before the wives of the Small Cause Court! What a worldly lady it is!”