A further factor in her temporary feeling of alienation from him was the mere physical fact that she saw him much less frequently and that he had nothing like his usual intimate knowledge of her comings and goings. And finally, Lawrence, now a too rapidly growing and delicate lad of eleven, had a series of bronchial colds which kept his mother much occupied with his care. As far as her family was concerned, Sylvia was thus left more alone than ever before, and although she had been trained to too delicate and high a personal pride to attempt the least concealment of her doings, it was not without relief that she felt that her parents had but a very superficial knowledge of the extent and depth to which she was becoming involved in her new relations. She herself shut her eyes as much as possible to the rate at which she was progressing towards a destination rapidly becoming more and more imperiously visible; and consciously intoxicated herself with the excitements and fatigues of her curiously double life of intellectual effort in classes and her not very skilful handling of the shining and very sharp-edged tools of flirtation. But this ambiguous situation was suddenly clarified by the unexpected call upon Mrs. Marshall, one day about the middle of December, of no less a person than Mrs. Jermain Fiske, Sr., wife of the Colonel, and Jerry's stepmother. Sylvia happened to be in her room when the shining car drove up the country road before the Marshall house, stopped at the gate in the osage-orange hedge, and discharged the tall, stooping, handsomely dressed lady in rich furs, who came with a halting step up the long path to the front door. Although Sylvia had never seen Mrs. Fiske, Mrs. Draper's gift for satiric word-painting had made her familiar with some items of her appearance, and it was with a rapidly beating heart that she surmised the identity of the distinguished caller. But although her quick intelligence perceived the probable significance of the appearance, and although she felt a distinct shock at the seriousness of having Jerry's stepmother call upon her, she was diverted from these capital considerations of such vital importance to her life by the trivial consideration which had, so frequently during the progress of this affair, absorbed her mind to the exclusion of everything else--the necessity for keeping up appearances. If the Marshall tradition had made it easier for her to achieve this not very elevated goal, she might have perceived more clearly where her rapid feet were taking her. Just now, for example, there was nothing in her consciousness but the embittered knowledge that there was no maid to open the door when Mrs. Fiske should ring.