A figure moved like a shadow in the depths of one of the rooms in the house opposite, and Norah leaned a little farther out of the window to catch more sunbeams for her hair; but when the figure came into full view she was disgusted to find it was only the servant, who flapped a duster and withdrew without a glance at herself. "If father persists in keeping me hidden away in West Kensington," she grumbled, "he can't expect me to marry a duke. No, I'm eighteen, and I'll marry Wilfred--at least I'll marry him when he can afford to be married, but meanwhile I _will_ be engaged. I'm tired of all this deception." Norah was pondering the virtue of frankness, when she heard a step behind her and, turning round, saw her mother's wonted expression of anxiety and mild disapproval. "Oh well," said Norah, quickly, to anticipate the reproach on her lips, "this is the only place I can dry my hair. And, mother, I can't wait any longer to be engaged to Wilfred. I'm going to have it out with father to-night." Mrs. Caffyn looked frightened, which was what Norah intended, for she felt in no mood to argue the propriety of sitting at an open window with her hair down, and had deliberately introduced the larger issue. "My dear child, I hope you will do nothing of the kind. Father has been very worried during the last month by that horrid theater advertisement which upset Canon Wilbraham so much, and he won't be at all in the right mood." Norah sighed patiently, avoided pouting, because she had been warned by a girl friend whose opinion she valued against spoiling the shape of her mouth, and with a shrug of her shoulders turned away and went on brushing her hair. "My dear child," Mrs. Caffyn began, deprecatingly. "Oh well, I can't sit in any other room! Besides, the kids are playing down below, and I can't keep an eye on them from anywhere else as well as I can from here." "Playing in the front garden?" repeated Mrs. Caffyn, anxiously. Anything positive done by any of her children always made her anxious, and she hurried across to the window to call down to them. The two little girls had managed to smear themselves from head to foot with grimy garden-mold, and most unreasonably Mrs. Caffyn could not see that their grubbiness was of no importance compared with the question of whether Norah's hair was not always exactly the color of mignonette buds. She began to admonish them from the window, and they defended themselves against her reproaches by calling upon their eldest sister to testify that what they had done they had done with her acquiescence, since she had not uttered a word against their behavior. Norah declared that she could not possibly go down-stairs without undoing all the good of her shampoo, and in the end Mrs. Caffyn, after ringing ineffectually for her second daughter or one of the servants, had to go down herself and rescue Gladys and Marjorie from the temptations of the front garden.