Mrs. Fox-Moore allowed her own coffee to get cold while she hovered over the sacred rite of scientific tea-making. Mr. Fox-Moore, talking to Vida about the Foreign Office reception, to which they had all gone on after the Tunbridges' dinner, kept watching with a kind of half-absent-minded scorn his wife's fussily punctilious pains to prepare the brew 'his way.' When all was ready and the tea steaming on its way to him in the hands of its harassed maker, he curtly declined it, got up, and left the room. A moment after, the shutting of the front door announced the beginning of yet another of the master's absences. 'How can you stand it?' said Vida, under her breath. 'Oh, I don't mind his going away,' said the other, dully. 'No; but his coming back!' 'One of the things I'm grateful to Donald for'--she spoke as if there were plenty more--'he is very good to you, Vida.' And in her tone there was criticism of the beneficiary. 'You mean, he's not as rude to me as he is to you?' 'He is even forbearing. And you--you rather frighten me sometimes.' 'I see that.' 'It would be very terrible for _me_ if he took it into his head not to like you.' 'If he took it into his head to forbid your having me here, you mean.' 'But even when you aren't polite he just laughs. Still, he's not a patient man.' 'Do you think you have to tell me that?' 'No, dear, only to remind you not to try him too far. For my sake, Vida, don't ever do that.' She put out her yellow, parchment-like hand, and her sister closed hers over it an instant. 'Here's the hot milk,' said Vida. 'Now we'll have some more coffee.' 'Are you coming with me to-day?' Mrs. Fox-Moore asked quite cheerfully for her as the servant shut the door. 'Oh, is this Friday? N--no.' The younger woman looked at the chill grey world through the window, and followed up the hesitating negative with a quite definite, 'I couldn't stand slums to-day.' The two exchanged the look that means, 'Here we are again up against this recurring difference.' But there was no ill-humour in either face as their eyes met. Between these two daughters of one father existed that sort of haunting family resemblance often seen between two closely related persons, despite one being attractive and the other in some way repellent. The observer traces the same lines in each face, the same intensification of 'the family look' in the smile, and yet knows that the slight disparity in age fails to account for a difference wide as the poles.