ses filled with the minor luxuries of the toilet, the ruffs,
the collars, the slipper-rosettes, the embroidered belts, the hair
ornaments, the chiffon scarves, all objects diverse, innumerable,
perishable as mist in tree-branches, all costly in exact ratio to
their fragility. Back of her were the children's dresses, fairy-like,
simple with an extravagantly costly simplicity. It occurred to Sylvia
as little as to many others of the crowd of half-hypnotized women,
wandering about with burning eyes and watering mouths through the
shrewdly designed shop, that the great closets back of these adroitly
displayed fineries might be full of wearable, firm-textured little
dresses, such as she herself had always worn. It required an effort of
the will to remember that, and wills weak, or not yet formed, wavered
and bent before the lust of the eye, so cunningly inflamed. Any sense
of values, of proportion, in Sylvia was dumfounded by the lavishness,
the enormous quantities, the immense varieties of the goods displayed.
She ached with covetousness....

When they joined the others at the hotel her mother, after commenting
that she looked rather flushed and tired, happened to ask, "Oh, by the
way, Sylvia, did you happen to come across anything in serge suits
that would be suitable for school-wear?"

Sylvia quivered, cried out explosively, "_No!_" and turned away,
feeling a hot pulse beating through her body. But Aunt Victoria
happened to divert attention at that moment. She had been reading,
with a very serious and somewhat annoyed expression, a long telegram
just handed her, and now in answer to Mrs. Marshall's expression of
concern, said hastily, "Oh, it's Arnold again.... It's always Arnold!"
She moved to a desk and wrote a brief telegram which she handed to
the waiting man-servant. Sylvia noticed it was addressed to Mr. A.H.
Saunders, a name which set dimly ringing in her head recollections now
muffled and obscured.

Aunt Victoria went on to Mrs. Marshall: "Arnold hates this school so.
He always hates his schools."

"Oh, he is at school now?" asked Mrs. Marshall. "You haven't a tutor
for him?"

"Oh yes, Mr. Saunders is still with him--in the summers and during
holidays." Mrs. Marshall-Smith explained further: "To keep him up in
his _studies_. He doesn't learn anything in his school, you know. They
never do. It's only for the atmosphere--the sports; you know, they
play cricket where he is now--and the desirable class of boys h