wrong, what she contemplated, utterly wrong, and
wild to madness; but the girl was ripe for such temptation and frail
with a weakness due to long years of deprivation. Full half of her
heart's desire was here, free to her covetous fingers, a queen's
trousseau of beautiful belongings.

"It's only for an hour. No one need ever know. I'll leave everything
just as I found it. And I'm so uncomfortable!"

She hesitated a moment longer, but only a moment; of a sudden
smouldering embers of jealousy and desire broke into devastating
flame, consuming doubts and scruples in a trice. Swift action ensued;
this was no more an affair of conscience, but of persuasion and
resistless impulse. She flew about like one possessed--as, indeed, she
was, no less.

Her first move was to turn on hot water in the shining porcelain tub.
Then, instinctively closing and locking the hall door, she slipped
from her despised garments and, hanging them up to dry in a tiled
corner where their dampness could harm, nothing, slipped into the
bath. . . .

Half an hour later, deliciously caressed by garments of soft white
silk beneath a feather-weight _robe-de-chambre_, she sat before the
dressing-table, drying her hair in the warm draft of an electric fan
and anointing face, hands, and arms with creams and delicately scented
lotions.

A faint smile touched lips now guiltless of any hint of sullenness;
she hummed softly to herself, whose heart had almost forgotten its
birthright of song and laughter; never the least pang of conscience
flawed the serene surface of her content.

Properly dressed, her hair was beautiful, soft, fine and plentiful,
with a natural wave that lent an accent to its brownish lustre. When
she finished arranging it to her complete satisfaction she hardly knew
the face that smiled back at her from the mirror's depths.
Miraculously it seemed to have gained new lines of charm; its very
thinness was now attractive, its colour unquestionably intrinsic; and
her eyes were as the eyes of a happy child, exulting in the
attainment of long-coveted possessions.

It wasn't in human nature to contemplate this transformation and feel
contrition for whatever steps had been necessary to bring it about.

And when she could do no more to beautify her person Sally turned
again to the clothes-press, by now so far gone in self-indulgence, her
moral sense so insidiously sapped by the sheer sensual delight she had
of all this pilfered luxury, that sh