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And yet, only two hours before, she had been kissed on the cheeks and on the hair by Pierce Winwood!

The result of her father’s words was to make her feel far more deeply than she had yet felt that she had been guilty of something dreadful in the way of double-dealing when she had allowed Pierce Winwood to kiss her—even if she had allowed him to kiss only one of her hands she would have been guilty (she now felt) of something almost shocking. Breathing as she now did, in the centre of the paternal halo of her father’s phrases, she could not but feel shocked as she reflected upon her frankness in confessing (in the breathing spaces between his kisses) her love for Pierce Winwood, and before she met her mother she was actually thinking what reparation she could make to her parents for her shocking conduct. Would an attitude of complete submission to their wishes be sufficient, she asked herself.

She came to the conclusion that it would not be an excessive atonement to make for so terrible a lapse from the conduct which was expected from her. It certainly would not, for her father had given her to understand that he had only been induced to give his consent to her engagement to Ernest Clifton, because it was clearly her dearest hope to get his consent to that engagement. How absurd then was her thought that there was any atonement in an attitude of submission to a fate which her parents had the best reasons for believing that she most ardently sought.

And thus she had to face her mother.

The maternal halo which her mother welded to that of her father formed a most appropriate decoration, any connoisseur of phrases would have admitted. It was mat gilt with a burnished bit of repousse here and there along the border. But the double halo, though decorative enough, was too heavy for Josephine’s head and its weight oppressed her.

Her mother was a charming woman. She had not reached that period of humiliation in the life of a woman of the world when she hears people say that she is a charming woman still. No one ever thought of saying that she was a charming woman still. Growing old has gone out, for it has become acknowledged that the custom of a woman’s doing her best to look hideous with caps and combs and things when she gets married is allied to the Suttee; and Lady Gwendolen West—she was the fifth daughter of the late Earl of Innisfallen in the peerage of Ireland—was one of the leaders of modern intelligence who had made this discovery in the science of comparative superstition. By the aid of a confidential masseuse and an hour’s sleep before lunch and dinner every day of her life, she remained worldly at forty-six.

She kissed her daughter with a subtle discrimination of what her daughter expected of her and gave her her blessing.

“You are a wicked child,” was the opening bar of the maternal benediction. “How wicked you have been!—absolutely naughty: you know you cannot deny it, you sweet thing. And you make me look a hundred, you know, especially when I have anything of mauve about me. Thank heaven, I am not as other women who make up with that absurd mauve complexion and think that it deceives any one. What would you think of your mother, Joe, if she made up like those poor things one meets even at the best houses, though I do think that you might have let me into your confidence, Joe—I do really. You know that I should have been delighted to take your part against your father any day. I see you looking at my new tocque, but if you say that the pink and crimson poppies do not look well among the corn ears I’ll have nothing more to do with you or your affairs. Now what on earth are you staring at, Joe? Isn’t it quite natural for corn and poppies——”

“It’s wheat—wheat,” said Josephine, and still she kept her eyes fixed upon the headdress of her mother. (“Only two hours ago—only two hours ago.”)

“And where’s the difference between wheat and corn, you little quibbler?” laughed Lady Gwen. “You didn’t know that I had ordered the tocque from Madame Sophy. I kept it a secret from you in order to surprise you. But it hasn’t surprised you after all. Now what was I saying apropos of secrets just now?—something about—of course, I knew that we had been talking of secrets. You were very naughty, you sly puss, and you don’t deserve to be forgiven; but Mr. Clifton—I suppose I must call him Ernest now—how funny it will be!—he’s one of the most coming men—he’s awfully coming. Your father agreed with surprising ease. I expect that some one turned him against the notion that he had that Lord Lull-worth would have suited you. Lord Lully is no fool, as I happen to know; so perhaps things are just as well as they are, though I know your father thought that, with you married to the son of the Minister, he was pretty sure of getting into the Cabinet. I met Lord Lully only yesterday and he asked me how it had never occurred to some of the men who do the caricatures in the papers to draw the Marquis in the character of a job-master. Funny, wasn’t it? A bit disrespectful of course; but then everybody knows that the Marquis has done very well for all his relations and his relations’ relations. Good heavens, is that four o’clock striking? Hurry upstairs and get Madeline to put you into another dress. We are going to the Glastonburys’ reception in Hyde Park Gate. The Green Scandinavian are to be there. Make haste. We have two other places of call.”

What was she to say to such a mother? How could she hope for sympathy from such a source? How could she tell Lady Gwendolen that she had changed her mind—that she loved not Ernest Clifton but Pierce Winwood?

That was the terrible part of this greeting of her parents: they took everything for granted; they assumed that her dearest wish was to obtain their consent to be engaged with Mr. Clifton, though it did not look very much as if they expected her to be exuberant in her gratitude to them for their complaisance. She had been deadly cold while her father had spoken to her, and she had not warmed in the least under the influence of her mother’s chatter. Was this the way in which girls as a rule deport themselves when the happiest hour of their life has come?

“I am not going out this afternoon,” she said when her mother had turned to a mirror to pinch some fancied improvement in the poppies that flared over her tocque.

“What nonsense are you talking?” cried Lady Gwen pinching away. “What nonsense! These things should be bordered with wire; they fall out of shape in a day. Is that an improvement?”

She faced her daughter, and Joe said:

“I somehow think that it was best lying flat. No, I’m not going out this afternoon. I am deadly tired.”

“You do look a bit blowsy,” said the mother with a critical poise of the inverted flower-basket on her head. Then, as if a sudden thought had struck her, she added, while Josephine was going to the door: “Don’t you run away with the notion that he is likely to drop in this afternoon upon you. The chances are that he will be at the Oppenkirks’, so your best chance will be to come with me.”