At the other end of the room, by the wardrobe, Laura, in her innocence, was babbling about Owen. "He's growing frightfully extravagant," she said. "He got fifteen pounds for an article the other day, and what do you think he did with it? Look there!" She had taken a gown, a little mouse-coloured velvet gown, from the wardrobe and laid it on the bed for Nina to admire. "He went and spent it, every bit of it, on that. He said he thought I should look nice in it. Wasn't it clever of him to know? And who ever would have thought that he'd have cared?" Nina looked at the gown and remembered the years when Laura had gone shabby. "He cares so much," said Laura, "that I have to put it on every evening." "Put it on now," said Nina. "Shall I?" She was longing to. "No, I don't think I will." "You must," said Nina. Laura put it on, baring her white neck and shoulders, and turned for Nina to "fasten her up the back." Nina had a vision of Prothero standing over the little thing, his long deft hands trembling as he performed this office. The Kiddy, divinely unconscious, babbled on of Owen and the wonderful gown. "Conceive," she said, "the darling going out all by himself to get it! How he knew one gown from another--how he knew the shops--what hand guided him--I can't think. It must have been his guardian angel." "Or yours." "Yes--when you think of the horrors he might have got." Laura had stroked the velvet to smoothness about her waist, and now she was pulling up a fold of lace above her breasts. As she did this she looked at her own image in the glass and smiled softly, unaware. Nina saw then that her breasts were slightly and delicately rounded; she recognized the work of life, shaping Laura's womanhood; it was the last touch of the passion that had made her body the sign and symbol of its perfection. Her own breasts heaved as the wild fang pierced them. Then, as her fingers brushed the small white back, there surged up in her a sudden virile tenderness and comprehension. She looked at Laura with Prothero's eyes, she touched her almost with Prothero's touch. There was, after all, some advantage in being made so very like a man, since it compelled her to take Prothero's view of a little woman in a mouse-coloured velvet gown. The gown was fastened, and the Kiddy in an innocent vanity was looking over her left shoulder and admiring her mouse-coloured tail. Of a sudden she caught sight of Nina's eyes in the glass regarding her sombrely. She turned and put up her face to Nina's, and paused, wavering. She closed her eyes and felt Nina's arms about her neck, and Nina's hands touching her hair with a subtle, quick caress, charged with confession. Laura's nerves divined it. She opened her eyes and looked at Nina. "Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me." [Illustration: "Ah," she cried, "try not to hate me!"] Nina bowed her head. "Poor Kiddy, dear Kiddy," she whispered. "How could I?" How could she?