“We’re in Dr Quack’s house.” “Never! Oh! I say--it’s enough to take all my appetite away.” “Indeed no, Princess. It is his prescription that is making you so well.” Marigold laughed--a charming mixture of fright, wonder, and self-confidence. “Ah, well!” said she, “I believe he owes me something. I believe somewhere or somehow I’ve done him a good turn, and I certainly do feel well. I feel so intensely happy, Alice--not too happy, but really happy. Now, this is champagne, Alice--the real thing. Just taste--that side of the glass. Isn’t it lovely?” “Delicious!” “I’ve eaten every scrap. And I could have eaten more, I’m sure. But just let me think a minute or two. I seem all in a mist.” And she rested her forehead on her hands, whilst Alice removed the tray and began to prepare for dressing. “Alice,” she called at last, with none of that restlessness that lately had characterised her speaking, “I’m afraid I shall have to go as soon as I’m dressed. I don’t feel quite equal to meeting him.” “He said I was to tell you he wished to see you as soon as you found it convenient to-night.” “I don’t think I care to see him. I--he knows what an inferior kind of woman I am. He knows better than any one. Indeed, he is the only one who does know.” “If you’re inferior, I don’t know what the other women are.” “Ah! but I have been terribly silly and wicked too. And it’s no good pretending with him that I haven’t been, because, somehow or other, he has always been there, just when I’ve been doing something or other I shouldn’t do. Oh! and I’ve been so spiteful and jealous too, Alice. I really wonder how I can feel so well, when I’ve been so bad.” But she got up and dressed, and Alice brushed out the wavy golden hair with much greater pleasure than last night, and arranged the simple white dress with greater pleasure too. And at last Marigold stood ready, and she looked at herself in the long mirror, and said with laughing excitement: “You know, Alice, I don’t feel a bit like myself to-night--I don’t really. I shall go to see the--Mr Barringcourt, and--and if he looks superior, as he is nearly sure to do, I shall tell him I was very ill, and I wasn’t responsible. Good-bye.” And Marigold went with the waiting-woman, and she felt happy and prettily confident, because, after all, as she had thought of it in dressing, she remembered that the Master had not been at all superior last night, that he had looked terribly worn and anxious, and had appealed to her in a way that had surprised her. And not only that, but she had conquered once and for all, after many weary months of struggle, that lower nature, fierce and passionate, which, if it dies at the right time, is the best guarantee of the higher life unhampered. “He won’t keep me long,” she said, as she went down the staircase, a smile lighting up her eyes. “He will be getting ready to go away to the woman he loves.” And there was nothing pathetic in her smile or words--but happiness and laughter.