"Oh, I am glad you are here! I'm glad to have another girl! Girls understand. I wish I hadn't opened those horrid old parcels. It's just as I said--presents are disappointing. Now I feel thoroughly humped and dumpy! It's so stupid, too, for I know quite well that I've every sane reason to be pleased. How exasperating it is that one's head and one's heart so seldom agree!" Claire gave the plump arm another squeeze, but made no further answer. She was afraid to show how well she understood. Janet would forget her hasty words, and believe that her secret was locked within her own breast; but the other girl realised the position as clearly as if she had been told in so many words--"I am in love with one man, and another man is in love with me. I am throwing away the substance for the shadow!" "Ah, well, such is life!" continued Janet, sighing. "Now I'm supposed to go downstairs and be the life of the party! How I do dislike family parties! Mother says it's the ideal thing for relations to gather together for Christmas Day, but I've been gathered together for so _many_ years!" "You are too well-off, my dear, that's what's the matter! I have never met a girl before who had so much to make her happy, and yet you are not satisfied. How would you like to be a High School-mistress living in poky lodgings, not able to have a holiday because she can't afford two rents, and getting only one present all told?" Janet looked at her quickly. "Have you had only one?" "I said _a_ High School-mistress, not any special mistress, but I will be definite if you like. How would you like to be _Me_?" Janet turned suddenly, laid her free hand on Claire's shoulder, and stared deeply into her face. "I--don't--know!" she said slowly. "Sometimes I think it's just what I should like. I have a great deal, but you have more. Look at our two faces in that glass!" She drew Claire round so that they stood in front of the Chippendale mirror over the mantelpiece, from whence a row of pictured faces stared back, as though stolidly sitting in judgment. The clear tints of Claire's skin made Janet look sallow and faded, the dark curve of her eyebrows under the sweep of gold brown hair, the red lips and deeply cleft chin, made Janet's indeterminate features look insignificant, the brown eyes seemed the only definite feature in her face, and they were clouded with depression. "Look at yourself," she said deeply, "and look at me!" It was an awkward moment, and Claire shrugged uncomfortably. "But my face is--it has to be--my fortune!" "Oh, beauty! I wasn't thinking of beauty," Janet cried unexpectedly. "You are very pretty, of course, but heaps of girls are pretty. It's something more--I suppose it is what is called Charm. When people see you once, they remember you; they want to see you again. You make a place for yourself. I am one in a crowd. People like me well enough when they are with me, but--they forget!"