She sat back and away from the bureau at a timid distance from the wonderful looking-glass RoBards had bought her not long ago as the novelty of the day: an oval reflector with a jointed rod to fasten above the large mirror, so that the back of one’s head was visible without turning and twisting. They called it the _miroir face et nuque_, and Patty had reveled in the ease it gave her in coiling the great braids and rolls of her coiffure. But RoBards felt that the new contrivance had taken away something charming in the mechanism of her toilet. Hitherto he had loved to watch her trying to bend her lithe frame spirally while her hands and arms dipped and tapped like twin swans as she labored over the last disposition of the least thread of her beautiful hair. He had found exquisite grace in her nymphlike contortions when she held her hand-glass in various places behind her head and tried to look around her own ears or up over her own eyebrows. He had laughed at her impossible efforts, but he had loved them. The _miroir face et nuque_ had made the process more efficient and less amusing. But now she was afraid to look at herself fore and aft, or at all. On the bureau was a bracelet she had rejoiced in when he brought it home as the latest importation from France: a jointed, green gold serpent to wrap round and round her wrist; it had a fierce diamond in its crest and bloodshot rubies for eyes. Next to it lay a tiny watch from Tiffany’s in a locket no bigger than a shilling; also another fantastic contrivance, a little diamond-sprinkled gold pocket-pistol with a watch in the butt, and, hidden beneath it, a vinaigrette against fainting spells; not to mention a bouquet-holder that popped out when you pulled the trigger. Spilled along the bureau was a loop of pearls her mother had worn as a bride; yellowed they were with years. And a necklace of tiny diamonds he had squandered an unexpected fee upon after a quarrel. Often and often he had watched them luminously mysterious as they made a little brook around her throat and laughed silently above the panting of her spent heart after a dance. But she would not wear them now. They were the loot of her youth, doomed to the museum of age. She sat cowering away from them, slumped with intentional lack of grace in a chair, her fingers nagging at a sandalwood and silken fan she had fluttered against her breast or dangled from her wrist in the last German she danced—a very riotous German that had made the town gasp. Never had RoBards loved her so much as at this moment. Never had she seemed so beautiful. But it was the beauty of a maple tree in autumnal elegy. He could not praise her aloud for this pitiable splendor. Still less could he tell her that one more of her babies was impatient to marry. Junior was Patty’s final toy. She spoiled him and wanted for him everything he wanted. But she could not wish him another woman to love, a young beauty to worship even to marriage.