"We let it rip--such a row! He looked rather taken aback but awfully pleased, said 'Thank you, ladies,' and then simply did a bolt." "Well, I'm blessed!" McTaggart roared--"but glad I'm not a Professor for girls." "We thought him such a brick, you see, for not reporting the whole matter. And, after all," Jill smiled--"he can't help his red hair." "Nor his 'nice eyes'?" Peter added. But Jill refused to be drawn. CHAPTER VII Mrs. Merrod gazed into her mirror across the littered dressing-table. It was a gilded triple affair, each side panel swinging on a pivot so that the woman sitting there could study herself from all angles. Under the crude electric light, from which she had removed the rose-coloured shade, her face looked sallow and almost plain, but was saved from insignificance by the intelligence of her eyes. Dark topaz colour they were under the fine arched brows, full of deep slumbering fire that accentuated the hint of passion in the full-lipped and mocking mouth. After a moment's steady gaze, drawing her lace peignoir about her, she rang the bell that lay on the table: a dainty little silver toy where a winged Eros stooped to kiss a smiling Psyche with arms uplifted. When the lips of the little creatures met the electric poles were united, and away in her maid's room she could hear the distant reverberation. The door opened noiselessly. "Melanie, my velvet dress, and the boots with the gray suede tops." "Bien, Madame." The maid passed into the dressing-room adjoining, where a looped-up curtain of rose-coloured silk revealed an elaborately fitted bath. "The ermine scarf--no! The gray fox." She still studied her pale face--"and I want those new combs from Lalique--and long gray gloves and my violet toque." She glanced as she spoke at the little clock which pointed to half-past six, and, with a sigh of relief, leaned back comfortably in her chair. To pass the time while the maid came and went between the cupboards of the two rooms, Mrs. Merrod opened her manicure case, and began to polish her pink nails. Then, as the door closed at last behind Melanie's brisk step, she stirred herself and started upon the lengthy business of her toilette. Into a saucer she poured from a bottle a thick creamy-looking liquid, and, with a broad camel's hair brush, spread it smoothly over her face. She waited for the skin to absorb it, then, with a piece of chamois leather, she polished the whitened surface lightly, added a faint dust of powder and peered again into the glass. Satisfied with the result, she drew out the nearest drawer of the satin-wood dressing table, disclosing a number of pencils and lip-salves and little pots of cosmetic. She hunted for a tiny brush, dipped it in a dark powder and, holding back each eyelid, proceeded to brush the lashes upward. Next a black pencil for her eyebrows, the merest line, traced with skill; then another, this time blue to accentuate the length of her eyes.