Another code rule. These two--mother and daughter--treated one another with polite deference. Never intruded on each other's privacy. Rarely interfered with each other's engagements. Mrs. Kemp liked her breakfast in bed--a practice Charley loathed. Once a week a strapping Swedish damsel came to the apartment to give Mrs. Kemp a body massage and what is known as a "facial." You should have heard Mrs. Carrie Payson on the subject. Belle defended the practice, claiming that it benefited some obscure digestive ailment from which she suffered. Lottie tapped at Belle's door. A little silence. Then an unenthusiastic voice bade her enter. Belle was in bed, resting. Belle looked her age in bed in the morning. Slightly haggard and a little yellow. "I thought it must be you." "It is." Belle rolled a languid eye. "I woke up feeling wretched. How about this Gussie business?" "I'm just going downtown. It'll turn out all right, I think." "Just arrange things so that Gussie won't be upset for Tuesday. You wouldn't think she was nervous, to look at her. Great huge creature. But when she's upset! And I do so want that luncheon to be just right. Mrs. Radcliffe Phelps----" Lottie could not restrain a little smile. "Oh, Belle." Belle turned her head pettishly on the pillow. "Oh, Belle!" she mimicked in an astonishingly un-grown-up manner. Indeed, she sounded amazingly like the school-girl of Armour Institute days. "You're more like mother every day, Lottie." Lottie closed the door softly. Charley was waiting for her at the end of the hall. "Don't say I didn't warn you. Here--I'll give you a chocolatey kiss. Are you lunching downtown? There's a darling new tea-room just opened in the Great Lakes Building----" "I've promised to be home by noon, at the latest." "What for?" "To take mother marketing and over to the West Side----" "Oh, for Heaven's sake!" "You have your job, Charley. This is mine." "Oh, is it? Do you like it?" "N-n-no." "Then it isn't." Lottie flung a final word at the door. "Even a free untrammelled spirit like you will acknowledge that such a thing as duty does exist, I suppose?" Charley leaned over the railing to combat that as Lottie flew downstairs. "There is no higher duty than that of self-expression." "Gabble-gabble!" laughed Lottie, at the vestibule door. "Coward!" shouted Charley over the railing. CHAPTER X