My hair—my pet vanity—the prettiest thing about me! Once Sydney Vandeleur begged me for a piece of it to keep—that piece with the ripple—as if I’d cut it! If I had, it wouldn’t have got kissed.... Hateful, clumsy, blundering, or _something_ young man! He _needn’t_ have kissed me at all! He _could_ have got out of it—in spite of his detestable old uncle. Couldn’t he have seemed to think that I was too shy to let him in public, and allowed me to slip away? Or couldn’t he have followed me into the hall and shut the door and _pretended_? Or couldn’t he have hatched up some joke on the spur of the moment and announced cheerfully— “Oh, we don’t say our good nights in here, Uncle; outside in the veranda is where we say good night”—or something like that? Easily. Then what did he mean by it? Was it that this excruciating evening, with its countless trials, had worn his patience absolutely through, and that he felt he must vent his fury on something besides Cariad? Was that kiss a kind of “let-fly” at _me_? How frightfully unfair! As if I’d done anything but rush into breaches and make the best of things for him! Good gracious! I shall tell him exactly what I think of it all to-morrow! * * * * * But the evening held one last trial for me before I was able to slip into that springy snowdrift of a bed and lie tossing, indignantly awake, for quite an hour after I’d heard the motor puff off, taking Major Montresor to catch his last train up to town. This trial was heralded by a tap at my door. Enter Blanche in her _débutante’s_ dinner-gown. “How early you’re going to bed, Nancy! We thought you were still with Billy, but Uncle Albert’s taken him on at billiards—he says he’s playing worse than anyone he’s ever seen. Is anything the matter, dear?” “Oh, no—nothing; why?” “You look so flushed—I thought you might have a headache.” A headache—ah! valuable antique feminine excuse for everything! “Yes—perhaps I have, a little.” “Poor darling! Everybody _did_ seem to be talking at once at dinner, and Uncle Albert _is_ such a fog-horn, enough to go through anybody’s head. Let me brush your hair for you, will you?” I had to let her. “It’ll be better with all these pins and clips out,” said Blanche, unfastening and shaking loose. “Goodness, what lots you’ve got! It’s like yards and yards of black skein-silk. And _how_ lovely and soft.” And here, in the looking-glass, I saw the girl’s face, blonde and clear-featured as her brother’s, pressed for a moment to the ripple of dark hair above my ear. It must have looked something like that just now to those two other men in the den.... Then I saw my own face turn scarlet. Blanche Waters saw that too. “Oh, sorry,” she murmured, with a little “understanding” smile. “Mustn’t I?” She might just as well have _said_, “Mustn’t anybody except Billy kiss you just there?” —Which did, as my brother Jack would say, put the lid on it!