A voice very different from Bettina's answered in some language I did not know. I started back and, as I was going on, the door was opened wide. A lady stood on the threshold in a flood of light. A lady with a dazzling complexion. Her lips were so brightly red, they looked bloody. She had diamonds in her ears, and a diamond necklace on a neck as white and smooth as china. Her yellow hair was disarranged as though she had been asleep. She was wearing a kimono of scarlet silk embroidered in silver. She asked me something, not in French, not German, and not, I think, Italian. I said I was afraid I did not understand. My aunt came noiseless down the long corridor, and the foreign lady hastily shut her door. This other guest must be some very great person! My aunt was dressed for dinner in a gown all covered with little shining scales, like a snake's skin. "What are you doing?" she said, in an odd tone as if she had caught me in something underhand. I explained that I was looking for Bettina. And I found courage to say that I was sorry our rooms were so far apart. She took no notice of that. "You will see Bettina at dinner," she said, and it struck me she could be very stern. I felt my heart begin to beat, but I managed to say that I was sure Betty would wait for me to help her to dress. "I have told you she will have a maid to do all that is necessary." "I hope you won't mind," I said, "just for to-night. It is always my mother, or me, who dresses Bettina...." She seemed to consider. I said to myself again: "Oh, dear, she doesn't like me at all." "Take her, Curran," she said. The hard-faced woman came and piloted me round the angle of the corridor to Betty's door. . . . . . We fell into each other's arms, and laughed and kissed, as though we had been parted for weeks. * * * * * I was determined not to let her know that Aunt Josephine and I were not liking one another. I only said I didn't like her taste in pictures. Betty tried to stand up for her. She reminded me of the statues and casts from the antique at Lord Helmstone's. She asked me suddenly if I wasn't well. I complained a little of the air. I thought we might have the window open while I did her hair. But Betty said, no. She had tried, and found she didn't understand London fastenings. So she had rung for the maid, and the maid had said: "This isn't the country"--and that people didn't like their windows open in London. Betty thought it quite reasonable. London dust and "blacks" would soon ruin this pretty white room. Betty defended everything.