“We’re early, or we shouldn’t get a table,” pursued Lady Wilmot. “Always a hideous crush here. Well, my dear, I hope the babies are better? What an untold nuisance children must be! Measles is part of them, I suppose? How do you like your cottage? And when is Jack coming home? Tea and cake and muffins”--this to the waiter, in parenthesis. “Do you see that woman coming in? The one with the painted gauze scarf--not the only paint about her, by the way. Well, remind me to tell you something in connection with her, presently. Quite amusing. And how long are you going to be in town, my dear? And where are you staying?” Rose selected the last two questions to answer. “I’m only up for the day,” she said. “I’m afraid to leave the children longer. They develop a fresh infectious disease the moment my eye is not upon them.” She laughed, drawing off her gloves. It was the laugh of a woman contented with life, as for her it had resolved itself into the normal fate of motherhood, with its anxieties, its pleasures, its anticipations. Seated in the angle of the window, the light falling on her sunburnt face, her erect figure well suited by a successfully cut cloth gown, she was not only pleasant to look at, but she struck a curiously different note from the majority of the other women who now began to crowd the tea-room--women whose distinctive feature was their aimlessness. “You’ve improved a great deal, my dear!” remarked Lady Wilmot, after a critical stare. “I always said you were the type that improved with age. You’ll be a good-looking woman at forty, when all this sort of thing”--she included the room with a sweep of her hand--“is done for.” Mrs. Summers laughed again. “How encouraging of you!” “You’ve seen the Kingslakes, I suppose?” was Lady Wilmot’s next query. “No, scarcely once since they got into their flat last November. Just as they came to town, I moved out, and the children have kept me bound hand and foot ever since. I’m going to rush in between five and six on my way to Victoria.” “My dear, you won’t know Cecily!” “Why not?” asked Rose, almost sharply. “So pretty. So well dressed. Curious what a man can do, isn’t it? No wonder they’re vain.” Lady Wilmot smiled broadly as she raised a superfluously buttered muffin to her lips. “What man?” asked Rose, brusquely.