"But this is the sweetest of all," said Laura happily. She was delighted to be giving pleasure, but--beneath that--she equally enjoyed indulging her desire to be liked by everybody. As she spoke she lifted from the bed where it lay a most exquisitely embroidered dressing-gown with a little cap to match. "Yes, lovely," said Caroline. But the alteration in her tone was so marked and so sudden that Laura turned round quite sharply to see what the matter was: and in so doing she caught something clouded--sullen--what was it? just passing across the other girl's face. Why, of course--how dreadfully hard to see somebody else having all these beautiful things while you had nothing! Her sudden realization of this point of view was so complete that she flushed deeply from chin to forehead. What a perfect idiot she had been--when she only meant to be kind. All the same she was now mistaken; that change in Caroline's expression being caused by something entirely different from what she imagined herself to have discovered; and she would have been both startled and surprised had she known the actual fact. As it was, her one desire was to somehow retrieve her mistake. She looked at her pretty things, trying eagerly to think of something that she could give without seeming to patronize, and her glance fell on a box of coloured handkerchiefs, so she took it up in her hand and said carelessly: "Oh! these don't belong here. A firm from whom I bought a great many things sent me them, and they are a kind I never use. Still I had to keep them. I wonder if you would take them with you out of the way?" "Very kind--I'm sure. But you'll find a use for them," murmured Caroline, not extending her hand. The two girls looked away from each other, both a little discomfited; and in doing so they saw a photograph of Wilson in a silver frame which had been covered up and which the removal of the handkerchiefs had left exposed. In that brief silence the atmosphere subtly changed, though neither exactly realized that it had done so. "Well, I'm afraid I must be going now, Miss Temple," said Caroline. "Thank you very much indeed for letting me see your things." And she moved towards the door. "You are forgetting your handkerchiefs," said Laura, pressing them into Caroline's hand. "Do have them, just to please me. But you must have a cup of tea before you go. It is all ready." With that she led the way into the sitting-room, and Caroline lacked the social address to disentangle herself from the situation without being actually rude. She did not want to be that, therefore followed Laura, and as they went into the room Wilson rose from a seat by the window. But his heavy figure was silhouetted with a sort of hazy, golden outline against the strong afternoon light, and so she could not see his expression.