All the time her gaze was diligently inspecting every ill-cut seam and tortured trimming of the homemade triumph before her. The ear of the vicar's wife, always morbidly sensitive in that particular drawing-room, caught a tone of insult in every light word. A passionate resentment flamed up in her, and she determined to hold her own. "Are you going in for more visits when you leave here?" she inquired. "Yes, two or three," said Letty, turning her delicate head unwittingly. She had been throwing blandishments to Mrs. Watton's dog, a grey Aberdeen terrier, who stood on the rug quietly regarding her. "You spend most of the year in visits, don't you?" "Well, a good deal of it," said Letty. "Don't you find it dreadfully time-wasting? Does it leave you leisure for _any_ serious occupations at all? I am afraid it would make _me_ terribly idle!" Mrs. Hawkins laughed, attempting a tone of banter. Letty put up a small hand to hide a sudden yawn, which, however, was visible enough. "Would it?" she said, with an impertinence which hardly tried to conceal itself. "Evelyn, do look at that dog. Doesn't he remind you of Mr. Bayley?" She beckoned to the handsome child of sixteen who had sat on George Tressady's left hand at dinner, and, taking up a pinch of rose-leaves that had dropped from a vase beside her, she flung them at the dog, calling him to her. Instead of going to her, however, the dog slowly curled himself up on the rug, and, laying his nose along his front paws, stared at her steadily with the expression of one mounting guard. "He never will make friends with you, Letty. Isn't it odd?" said Evelyn, laughing, and stooping to stroke the creature. "Never mind; other dogs will. Did you see that adorable black Spitz of Lady Arthur's? She has promised to give me one." The two cousins fell into a chatter about their county neighbours, mostly rich and aristocratic people, of whom Mrs. Hawkins knew little or nothing. Evelyn Watton, whose instincts were quick and generous, tried again and again to draw the vicar's wife into the conversation. Letty was determined to exclude her. She lay back against the sofa, chatting her liveliest, the whiteness of her neck and cheek shining against the red of the damask behind, one foot lightly crossed over the other, showing her costly little slippers with their paste buckles. She sparkled with jewels as much as a girl may--more, indeed, in Mrs. Hawkins's opinion, than a girl should. From head to foot she breathed affluence, seduction, success--only the seduction was not for Mrs. Hawkins and her like.