Then a thought entered Leonetta's mind, which, to her credit be it said, she resisted at first, but which was too overpowering to be completely banished. It struck her for a moment that there was something faintly comical, almost pathetically ridiculous, in this elderly matron taking such laborious and elaborate pains to make herself attractive. Try as she might, Leonetta, from her angle of vision of seventeen years, could not repress the question: "What was it all for? What was the good of it all? Who could possibly care? Was the end commensurate with the exhaustive and exhausting means?" As the fierce light from the window beat down upon her mother's face, it seemed so old, so wondrously old, that all the formidable machinery of beautification about the room struck a chord of compassion in the flapper's breast, which was, however, at once compounded with humour in her mind. And then she could control herself no longer, and was forced to smile,--one of those broad mirthful smiles that are parlously near a laugh. Feeling, however, that her mood was one of derision, she turned quickly aside,--but not soon enough successfully to evade her mother's observant scrutiny. Mrs. Delarayne was too well aware of the awkward possibilities of the situation, and moreover too acutely sensitive generally, to be in any doubt as to the meaning of her younger daughter's amusement, and the flush beneath her ears spread to her cheeks. Simultaneously, however, her handsome face seemed suddenly to grow wonderfully stern and composed, and her eyes flashed with the fire which every woman seems to hold in reserve for an anti-feminine attack. "Wilmott," she said quietly, "will you leave the room a moment? I'll ring when I want you." Without even turning round to satisfy her curiosity, the well-trained servant dropped on to the corner of the bed the things she held in her hands, and was gone. For some unaccountable reason Leonetta at the same time felt a tremor of apprehension pass slowly over her, and her hands grew icily cold. She could feel her mother's masterful will in the atmosphere of the room, and glancing tremulously askance at the widow's unfinished coiffure, every line of which seemed crisp with power, walked over to the hearth-rug. Mrs. Delarayne's redness had now vanished. She was if anything a little pale, and she turned to face her daughter. "I am not angry, Leo," she began with terrifying suavity, "but I felt I really could not explain all these things to you,"--she waved a hand over the mass of articles displayed on the dressing-table,-- "in front of Wilmott. You see, servants have to take these things for granted without explanation." Leonetta felt her ears beginning to burn furiously. Her mother could be terrible. "Yes, you see now," continued the widow, "how worrying and how difficult are the means which I have to use to make myself presentable. Age is a tiresome thing, is it not? It is so much more simple when one is young."