r hair was mitigated by
gray and in her face were the tiny broken red lines which no doubt in
time would come to Winifred.

"This is Mama," said Winifred, accenting the second syllable strongly
and contriving at once to be vivacious and reverent.

Mama inclined her head toward me without the faintest smile, welcoming
or otherwise, placing her hand as she did so regally upon the teacozy,
as upon a royal orb.

"Mrs Thario," I said, "I am delighted to meet you."

Mama found this beneath her condescension.

"And this is Constance, the general's firstborn," introduced Winifred,
still retaining her liveliness despite Mama's low temperature. Constance
was the perfect connectinglink between Winifred and her mother, not yet
gray but soon to be so, without Winifred's animation, but with the same
voluntary smile showing the same white teeth. She rose and shook my hand
as she might have shaken a naughty puppy, with a vigorous sidewise jerk,
disengaging the clasp quickly.

"And this," announced Winifred brightly, "is Pauline."

To say that Pauline Thario was beautiful would be like saying Mount
Everest is high. In her, the blond hair sparkled like newly threshed
straw, the teeth were just as white and even, but they did not seem too
large for her mouth, and her complexion was faultless as a cosmetic ad.
She was an unbelievably exquisite painting placed in an appropriate
frame.

And yet ... and yet the painting had a quality of unreality about it, as
though it were the delineation of a madonna without child, or of a nun.
There was no vigor to her beauty, no touch of the earthiness or of
blemish necessary to make the loveliness real and bring it home. She did
not offer me her hand, but bowed in a manner only slightly less distant
than her mother's.

I sat down on the edge of a petitpoint chair, thoroughly illatease. "You
must tell us about your pills, Mr Weener," urged Winifred.

"Pills?" I asked, at a loss.

"Yes, the thingamyjigs youre going to have Joe make for you," explained
Constance.

Mama made a loud trumpeting noise which so startled me I half rose from
my seat. "Damned slacker!" she exclaimed, looking fiercely right over my
head.

"Now, Mama--bloodpressure," enjoined Pauline in a colorless voice.

Mama relapsed into immobility and Winifred went on, quite as if there
had been no explosion. "Are you married, Mr Weener?"

I said I was not.

"Then here's our chance for Pauline," decided Winifred. "Mr Weener,