"The exception proves the rule!" cried Cecil, and swept the papers together with a sigh of relief. "Done at last. Now for my blouse." Claire cast a glance at the clock. "Half-past ten. And you are so tired. Surely you won't begin to sew at this hour?" "I must. I want it for Saturday. I tried it on last night, and it wasn't a bit nice at the neck. I've got to alter it somehow." "I have some trimming upstairs. Just be quiet for five minutes, while I finish my list, and then I'll bring down my scrap-box, and we'll see what we can find." That scrap-box was in constant request during the next weeks. It was filled with the dainty oddments which a woman of means and taste collects in the course of years; trimmings and laces, and scraps of fine brocades; belts and buckles, and buttons of silver and paste; glittering ends of tinsel, ends of silk and ribbons that were really too pretty to throw away, and cunning little motifs which had the magic quality of disguising deficiencies and making both ends meet. Claire gave with a lavish hand, and Cecil's gratitude was pathetic in its intensity. More and more as the weeks passed on did she become obsessed with the craze for decking herself in fine garments; new gloves, shoes, and veils were purchased to supplement the home-made garments, and one memorable night there arrived a large dress-box containing an evening dress and cloak. "I have been out so little these last years. I have no clothes to wear," Cecil said in explanation. "It's not fair to--er--people, when they take you about, to look as if you had come out of the Ark... And these ready-made things are _so_ cheap!" She spoke with an air of excusing herself, and with a flush of embarrassment on her cheeks, and Claire hastened to sympathise and agree. She wondered if the embarrassment arose from the fact that for the last two weeks Cecil had not paid her share of the joint expenses! The omission had happened naturally enough, for on each occasion when the landlady appeared with the bill, Cecil had been absent on one of her now frequent excursions, when it had seemed the simplest thing to settle in full, and await repayment next day. Repayment, however, had not come. Half a dozen times over Cecil had exclaimed, "Oh, dear, there's that money. I _must_ remember!" but apparently she never had remembered at a moment when her purse was at hand.