f
things in the air, but I feel there's something behind it, and I hate
mysteries----"

"If I can convince you it's for the good of the family in general, if
not yours in particular, will you be a nice, white, woolly lamb, and go
with your kind little American friends?" Vic broke in, with her head on
my shoulder and an arm slipped round my waist.

"Mrs. Ess Kay's neither little nor kind," said I, "but, of course, I'll
do anything to help, if only I'm treated like a rational, grown-up
human being."

"And so you shall be. I told Mother it would be much better to be frank
with you, if you _are_ a Baby. It's too late to explain things now, but
if you'll be sweet to Mrs. Ess Kay, and agree with everything everybody
says about your trip, when we come up to bed and Mother's door's shut,
I'll make a clean breast and show you _exactly_ how matters stand."

With this, we separated, for we could hear Mrs. Ess Kay's voice in the
corridor, talking to Sally Woodburn on the way downstairs. Her voice is
never difficult to hear; rather the other way; and Miss Woodburn's soft
little drawl following it, reminded me of a spoonful of Devonshire
cream after a bunch of currants.

Mother was with them both in the oak drawing-room when Vic and I got
down, and I found myself staring at Mrs. Ess Kay with a new kind of
criticism in my mind; indeed, it hadn't occurred to me before to
criticise at all. I'd only felt that I didn't want to come any closer
to her. Now I was to come much closer, it seemed, and I looked at the
glittering lady, wondering how it would feel to be so close--wondering
what _she_ herself was.

Outside, she's more like the biggest and most splendid dressmaker's
model ever made for a Paris show-window than anything else I can think
of; at least, she is like that from under her chin down to the tips of
her toes. I say under her chin, for that feature, as well as all the
others above it, are miles removed from a pretty, wax lady in a
show-window.

I never supposed till I met Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox, that a live woman
could have a figure exactly like the fashion-plates, swelling like a
tidal wave above an hourglass of a waist, and retreating far, far into
the dim perspective below it, then suddenly bulging out behind like a
round, magnificent knoll, after a deep curve inward under the
shoulders. But Mrs. Stuyvesant-Knox's figure does all these things even
when she stands still, and a great many more when she walks, which act