e,
because of the idiotic way I talked to him. And he's bent on my taking
the money simply because it happens to belong to me. I consider that
a very silly reason. I'll _make_ Billy Woods take the money, and
I'll make him see that I'm _not_ a little pig, and that I trust him
implicitly. And I think I'm quite justified in using a little--we'll
call it diplomacy--because otherwise he'd go back to France or some
other objectionable place, and we'd both be _very_ unhappy."

Margaret began to laugh softly. "I've given him my word that I'll
do nothing further in the matter till he gets well. And I won't.
_But_----"

Miss Hugonin rose from the divan with a gesture of sweeping back her
hair. And then--oh, treachery of tortoise-shell! oh, the villainy of
those little gold hair-pins!--the fat twisted coils tumbled loose
and slowly unravelled themselves, and her pink-and-white face,
half-eclipsed, showed a delectable wedge between big, odourful,
crinkly, ponderous masses of hair. It clung about her, a heavy cloak,
all shimmering gold like the path of sunset over the June sea. And
Margaret, looking at herself in the mirror, laughed, and appeared
perfectly content with what she saw there.

"But," said she, "if the Fates are kind to me--and I sometimes think
I _have_ a pull with the gods--I'll make you happy, Billy Woods, in
spite of yourself."

The mirror flashed back a smile. Margaret was strangely interested in
the mirror.

"She has ringlets in her hair," sang Margaret happily--a low,
half-hushed little song. She held up a strand of it to demonstrate
this fact.

"There's a dimple in her chin"--and, indeed, there was. And a dimple
in either cheek, too.

For a long time afterward she continued to smile at the mirror. I am
afraid Kathleen Saumarez was right. She was a vain little cat, was
Margaret.

But, barring a rearrangement of the cosmic scheme, I dare say maids
will continue to delight in their own comeliness so long as mirrors
speak truth. Let us, then, leave Miss Hugonin to this innocent
diversion. The staidest of us are conscious of a brisk elation at
sight of a pretty face; and surely no considerate person will deny its
owner a portion of the pleasure that daily she accords the beggar at
the street-corner.

XXXIII

We are credibly informed that Time travels in divers paces with divers
persons--the statement being made by a lady who may be considered to
speak with some authority, having triumphantly withst