"Instead of wasting your time here, Cleo," she observed, picking up her book again, "why don't you go upstairs and pull some of those nasty black hairs off your upper lip? You know who's coming to-day, and you also know that young men, in this country at any rate, strongly object to any signs of temperament in a girl. They think it incompatible with their ideal of the angel, or the fairy, or some other nonsense." Cleopatra rose, jerked her shoulders impatiently, and snorted. "I should have thought it better to be natural," she blurted out. "If it's natural for me to have dark hairs on my upper lip, then surely I should not remove them." Again Mrs. Delarayne dropped her book and glanced round very angrily. "Don't be stupid, Cleo!" she cried. "What do you suppose 'natural' means nowadays? Has it any meaning at all? Is it natural for you to blow your nose in a lace handkerchief? Is it natural for you to do your hair up? Is it natural for you to eat marrons glaces as you do at the rate of a pound and a half a week,--yes, a pound and a half a week; I buy them so I ought to know, unless the servants get at them--when you ought to be living in a cave, dressed in bearskins and gnawing at the roots of trees? Don't talk to me about 'natural.' Nothing is natural nowadays, except perhaps the inexhaustible stupidity of people who choke over a little process of beautification and yet swallow the whole complicated artificiality of modern life." As Mrs. Delarayne turned her refined and still very beautiful face to the light, it became clear that she at any rate did not choke over any "little process of beautification"; for she was at least fifty-five years of age, and at a distance of two or three yards, looked thirty. Cleopatra moved mutinously towards the door. "That's right, my dear," said her mother in more conciliatory tones. "I don't mind your upper lip; I like it. But then I understand. Denis does not understand, and I'm convinced that he doesn't like it." Flushing slightly, Cleopatra turned to face her mother. "Edith dear, how can you talk such nonsense!" she exclaimed. "What do I care whether Denis likes it or not?" Mrs. Delarayne smiled. "Well, I do, my dear. When you are my age you'll be as anxious as I am to get your daughters married." The younger woman turned her head. "Married!" she cried. "Oh when shall I hear the end of that litany! I suppose you want me to marry anybody, it doesn't matter whom, so long as I----" "H'm," grunted the parent. "I don't think the discussion of that particular point would prove profitable." Cleopatra sailed haughtily out of the room, and there was just the suggestion of an angry slam in the way she closed the door after her.