er to. She had acted
on impulse, on an impulse born of intention, but she had hurt him. It
was in every line of his rigid body and set face.

"You're not angry, Pink dear?"

"There's nothing to be angry about," he said, stolidly. "Things have
been going on, with me, and staying where they've always been, with
you. That's all. I'm not very keen, you know, and I used to think--Your
people like me. I mean, they wouldn't--"

"Everybody likes you, Pink."

"Well, I'll trot along." He moved a step, hesitated. "Is there anybody
else, Lily?"

"Nobody."

"You won't mind if I hang around a bit, then? You can always send me off
when you are sick of me. Which you couldn't if you were fool enough to
marry me."

"Whoever does marry you, dear, will be a lucky woman."

In the end he stayed to luncheon, and managed to eat a very fair one.
But he had little lapses into silence, and Grace Cardew drew her own
shrewd conclusions.

"He's such a nice boy, Lily," she said, after he had gone. "And your
grandfather would like it. In a way I think he expects it."

"I'm not going to marry to please him, mother."

"But you are fond of Alston."

"I want to marry a man, mother. Pink is a boy. He will always be a boy.
He doesn't think; he just feels. He is fine and loyal and honest, but I
would loathe him in a month."

"I wish," said Grace Cardew unhappily, "I wish you had never gone to
that camp."

All afternoon Lily and Grace shopped. Lily was fitted into shining
evening gowns, into bright little afternoon frocks, into Paris wraps.
The Cardew name was whispered through the shops, and great piles of
exotic things were brought in for Grace's critical eye. Lily's own
attitude was joyously carefree. Long lines of models walked by, draped
in furs, in satins and velvet and chiffon, tall girls, most of them,
with hair carefully dressed, faces delicately tinted and that curious
forward thrust at the waist and slight advancement of one shoulder that
gave them an air of languorous indifference.

"The only way I could get that twist," Lily confided to her mother,
"would be to stand that way and be done up in plaster of paris. It is
the most abandoned thing I ever saw."

Grace was shocked, and said so.

Sometimes, during the few hours since her arrival, Lily had wondered if
her year's experiences had coarsened her. There were so many times when
her mother raised her eyebrows. She knew that she had changed, that the
granddaughter of old An