ill a snub. Her pride pranced with an assurance,
a certainty, that was at once baffling and unbaffled. In the presence of
her sister's unbroken and unshaken will and resolute assertion of her
smallest rights, Cleopatra shrank as before the force of an elemental
upheaval. Her tottering self-confidence swayed ominously in the
neighbourhood of the younger girl, and it was with alarm and
helplessness in her eyes, that she sought a refuge where she could
breathe undisturbed.

In the library she dropped desperately into a chair, and her glance ran
nervously up and down the bookshelves, while her ears listened
stealthily for echoes of the voice that was subordinating the house.

She had forgotten during these blissful months how beautiful her sister
was. Some mysterious power in her, that found it easy to forget these
things, had even led her memory to form quite a moderate estimate of
Leonetta's charms in her absence,--even her sister's telling tricks with
her hair had been completely banished from her mind.

Cleopatra rose and walked to the fire-place. On the mantelpiece, she
knew, there was a photograph of herself at Leonetta's age. She felt she
wanted to examine this record of her adolescence. She was groping for
strength: she wished to fortify herself.

She drew the photograph towards her. No, she had not changed so very
much. Only something inside her seemed to have grown less tense, less
self-confident. Also, she had not had Leonetta's advantages,--advantages
that she herself had been chiefly instrumental in securing for her
younger sister. More arts than that of wielding the French tongue are
learned in Paris. Apparently she never had arranged her hair quite as
Baby arranged hers.

And then, all at once, the door opened, and she pushed the photograph
violently from her, so that it fell with a clatter on the marble of the
mantelpiece. It was her mother; and as the door opened and shut, the
sound of Leonetta's voice upstairs swelled and died away again.

"Oh, it's you," Cleopatra cried, setting up the fallen frame.

Mrs. Delarayne walked to the window, spasmodically drew back a curtain,
and then turned to face her daughter.

"She's amazingly high-spirited, isn't she?"

"Extraordinary!" Cleopatra exclaimed.

"Can you go with her to Mlle. Claude's to-morrow to order those frocks?
You see, I have my Inner Light meeting in the afternoon."

"She won't like it."

"What does it matter? She won't listen to my sugge