ighed and sent back.

"Remember, whatever house you are at, never to have more Roquefort
than that."

"It would be simpler to do without it," said Sheila.

"It would be simple enough to do without a great many things," said
Mrs. Lavender severely. "But the wisdom of living is to enjoy as many
different things as possible, so long as you do so in moderation and
preserve your health. You are young--you don't think of such things.
You think, because you have good teeth and a clear complexion, you can
eat anything. But that won't last. A time will come. Do you not know
what the great emperor Marcus Antoninus says?--'In a little while thou
wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus.'"

"Yes," said Sheila.

She had not enjoyed her luncheon much--she would rather have had a ham
sandwich and a glass of spring water on the side of a Highland hill
than this varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of
physiology--but it was too bad that, having successfully got through
it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward.
It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the
same plight with two emperors.

"Frank, you can go and smoke a cigar in the conservatory if you
please. Your wife will come up stairs with me and have a talk."

Sheila would much rather have gone into the conservatory also, but she
obediently followed Mrs. Lavender up stairs and into the drawing-room.
It was rather a melancholy chamber, the curtains shutting out most of
the daylight, and leaving you in a semi-darkness that made the place
look big and vague and spectral. The little, shriveled woman, with
the hard and staring eyes and silver-gray hair, bade Sheila sit down
beside her. She herself sat by a small table, on which there were a
tiny pair of scales, a bottle of ammonia, a fan, and a book bound in
an old-fashioned binding of scarlet morocco and gold. Sheila wished
this old woman would not look at her so. She wished there was a window
open or a glint of sunlight coming in somewhere. But she was glad that
her husband was enjoying himself in the conservatory; and that for two
reasons. One of them was, that she did not like the tone of his talk
while he and his aunt had been conversing together about cosmetics
and such matters. Not only did he betray a marvelous acquaintance
with such things, but he seemed to take an odd sort of pleasure in
exhibiting his knowledge. He talked about the tri