The girl was so completely fresh and virginal, with a new beauty growing in her face and sweet grey eyes. She was lithe, active; he watched her run to catch his wife, to walk in beside her. Esmé was quite young, but she walked stiffly; she was growing angular. The two women pulled to the flap of the tent, flinging off their dripping things. Esmé had thrown a silken wrapper over her shoulders; she stood looking into the long glass she had hung up in a corner. A sense of futile anger racked her as she looked; the powder was streaked on her face; the rouge standing out patchily; she looked plain, almost old. The mirror showed her slim body, with limbs growing too thin, with her girlish outlines spoilt and gone. Behind her, unconscious of scrutiny, she watched Estelle drying herself vigorously, perfect of outline, with rounded arms moving swiftly, slight and yet well-covered, a model of girlish grace. With a muttered exclamation Esmé looked at tell-tale marring lines, began hastily to put on her expensive under-garments; cobwebby, silken things, trimmed with fine real lace. "Go for my powder, Scott"--Esmé's maids never stayed with her for long--"for my powder, quickly!" "A clumsy woman." Esmé lighted a cigarette, sat in the shadow, accentuating the age she had seen by knowing of it, lines of unhappiness deepening in her handsome face. Scott, objecting to a quarter of a mile in scorching heat, went mincingly. Came back with powder alone, without rouge or lip salve, or face cream--stood woodenly listening to an outburst of abuse. They were going on at once to a picnic luncheon; the motors were waiting. Denise had called out twice impatiently. "You said powder, mem." "I cannot go like this. I must get back; and they will not wait." Esmé had denounced the picnic as a bore in the morning; now she knew what it would be like to sit alone at a cold luncheon and miss the drive. "Madame"--a soft voice spoke outside the flaps of the tent. Scott, enraged and giving notice, had left to bridle in the sunshine--"is there anything I can do for Madame?" It was Esmé's old maid, Marie. The girl came in with a Frenchwoman's deftness, and pulled a make-up box from her pocket. "Pauvre, madame; after the bath too. I always carry this." Marie dabbed swiftly until the streaked complexion was made cunningly perfect. Marie was out of a place--had left her last mistress, a plebeian nobody.