"Don't work so hard, aunty," Bea said, easily. "Of course Steve's a wonderful old dear and all that--I wish I had asked him for the moon. I do believe he'd have gotten an option on it." She laughed and reached over to a bonbon dish to rummage for a favourite flavour. She selected a fat, deadly looking affair, only to bite into it and discover her mistake. She tossed it on the floor so that Monster could creep out of her silk-lined basket and devour the remains. "If you call natural feelings of a mother and an aunt 'working hard' I am at a loss----" her aunt began with attempted indignation. "Oh, I don't call anything anything; I'm dead and almost buried." She looked at her small self in the pier glass. "Think of all I have to go through with before it is over and we are on our way west. Here it is half-past twelve and I've not eaten breakfast really. I'm so tired of presents and bored with clothes that I cannot acknowledge another thing or decide anything. I think weddings are a frightful ordeal. Did you know the women on my war-relief committee presented me with a silver jewel box? Lovely of them, wasn't it? But I deserve it--after slaving all last winter. My bronchitis was just because I sold tags for them during that rainy weather." "No, I haven't seen it. But I am glad you decided on a church wedding--there is such a difference between a wedding and just a marriage." Beatrice shoved the box of lingerie away. "Those are all wrong, so back they go; and I can't help it if that woman does need money, I told her I wanted a full inch-and-a-half beading and she has put this crochet edge all round everywhere. I shan't accept a single piece!" Whereupon she sat down at her dressing table and rang for her maid. Madame Pompadour herself had no lovelier boudoir than Beatrice. It was replete with rose-coloured taffeta curtains, padded sky-blue silk walls with garlands of appliqued flowers. Lace frills covered every possible object; the ivory furniture was emphasized by smart rose upholstery, and the dressing table itself fairly dazzled one by the array of gold-topped bottles and gold-backed brushes. Johanna, the maid, began brushing the sunshiny hair, the Gorgeous Girl stamping her feet as snarls asserted themselves.