everything. The people were _so_ clever; it
was something cruel how clever they were. One man _did_ lay down the
law! Oh, didn't he though! I don't hold with being bullied and lectured
from the stage, do you, Mavis? It seems so unfair when you can't answer
back.'

'Was it Bernard Shaw?' she asked.

'No; it wasn't; not this time; it was someone else. Oh, I do feel
sometimes when I'm sitting in my stall, so good and quiet, holding my
programme nicely and sitting up straight to the table, as it were, and
then a fellow lets me have it, tells me where I'm wrong and all that; I
_should_ like to stand up and give a back answer, wouldn't you?'

'No; I'd like to see _you_ do it! Er--what colour is that hat that your
cousin gave you?'

'Oh, colour?' he said thoughtfully, smoking. 'Let me see--what colour
was it? It doesn't seem to me that it was any particular colour. It was
a very curious colour. Sort of mole-colour. Or was it cerise? Or
violet?... You wouldn't like to see it, would you?'

'Why, yes, I'd like to see it; I wouldn't try it on of course.'

He opened the box.

'Why, what a jolly hat!' she exclaimed. 'You may not know it, but that
would just suit me; it would go with my dress, too.'

'Fancy.'

She took off her own hat, and touched up her hair with her fingers, and
tried on the other. Under it her eyes brightened in front of the glass;
her colour rose; she changed as one looked at her--she was sixteen
again--the child he had first met at the Art School.

'Don't you think it suits me?' she said, turning round.

'Yes, I think you look very charming in it. Shall I put it back?'

There was a pause.

'I sha'n't know what on earth to do with it,' he said discontentedly.
'It's so silly having a hat about in a place like this. Of course you
wouldn't dare to keep it, I suppose? It does suit you all right, you
know; it would be awfully kind of you.'

'What a funny person you are, Vincy. I _should_ like to keep it. What
could I tell Aunt Jessie?'

'Ah, well, you see, that's where it is! I suppose it wouldn't do for
you to tell her the truth.'

'What do you mean by the truth?'

'I mean what I told you--how my cousin, Cissie Cavanack,' he smiled a
little as he invented this name, 'came up to town, chose the wrong hat,
didn't know what to do with it--and, you know!'

'I could tell her all that, of course.'

'All right,' said Vincy, putting the other hat--the old one--in the
box.' Where shall we dine?'

'O