Sylvia made a mental note to cultivate this pair not for their dresses, but for their behavior. Muriel was all very well, but those eyebrows eternally arched and those eyes eternally staring out of her head would sooner or later have most irresistibly to be given real cause for amazement. "Their mother likes them to be prettily dressed," said Miss Lee. "Of course she does," Gwendyr put in, primly. "She was an actress." To hell with Gwendyr, thought Sylvia. Why shouldn't their mother have been an actress? "Oh, but they're so conceited!" said Dorothy. "Enid Worsley _never_ can pass a glass, and their frocks are most frightfully short. _Don't_ you remember when they danced at last breaking-up?" "This is getting unbearable," Sylvia thought. "I think they're rather dears," Phyllis drawled. "They're jolly pretty, anyway." Sylvia looked at Phyllis and decided that she was jolly pretty, too, with her golden hair and smocked linen frock of old rose; she would like to be friends with Phyllis. The moment had come, however, when she must venture all her future on a single throw. She must either shock Miss Lee and the four girls irretrievably or she must be henceforth accepted at Hornton House as herself; there must be none of these critical sessions about Sylvia Scarlett. She pondered for a minute or two the various episodes of her past. Then suddenly she told them how she had run away from school in France, arrived in England without a penny, and earned her living as an odalisque at the Exhibition. Which would she be, she asked, when she saw the girls staring at her open-mouthed now with real amazement, villain or heroine? She became a heroine, especially to Gladys and Enid, with whom she made friends that night, and who showed her in strictest secrecy two powder-puffs and a tin of Turkish cigarettes. There were moments when Sylvia was sad, especially when war broke out and so many of the girls had photographs of brothers and cousins and friends in uniform, not to mention various generals whose ability was as yet unquestioned. She did not consider the photograph of Philip a worthy competitor of these and begged him to enlist, which hurt his feelings. Nevertheless, her adventures as an odalisque were proof in the eyes of the girls against martial relations; their only regret was that the Exhibition closed before they had time to devise a plot to visit the Hall of a Thousand and One Marvels and be introduced by Sylvia to the favorites of the harem. Miss Ashley was rather cross with Sylvia for her revelations and urged her as a personal favor to herself not to make any more. Sylvia explained the circumstances quite frankly and promised that she would not offend again; but she pointed out that the girls were all very inquisitive about Philip and asked how she was to account for his taking her out every Sunday. "He's your guardian, my dear. What could be more natural?"