uld slap him. I like to see a
man take life seriously and try to amount to something, and not waste
the best years of his life trailing after women who are old enough to
be his grandmother, and don't mean that it will ever come to anything."

In her room, in the front of the house, Laura was partly undressed when
Mrs. Cressler knocked at her door. The latter had put on a wrapper of
flowered silk, and her hair was bound in "invisible nets."

"I brought you a dressing-gown," she said. She hung it over the foot of
the bed, and sat down on the bed itself, watching Laura, who stood
before the glass of the bureau, her head bent upon her breast, her
hands busy with the back of her hair. From time to time the hairpins
clicked as she laid them down in the silver trays close at hand. Then
putting her chin in the air, she shook her head, and the great braids,
unlooped, fell to her waist.

"What pretty hair you have, child," murmured Mrs. Cressler. She was
settling herself for a long talk with her protege. She had much to
tell, but now that they had the whole night before them, could afford
to take her time.

Between the two women the conversation began slowly, with detached
phrases and observations that did not call necessarily for
answers--mere beginnings that they did not care to follow up.

"They tell me," said Mrs. Cressler, "that that Gretry girl smokes ten
cigarettes every night before she goes to bed. You know the
Gretrys--they were at the opera the other night."

Laura permitted herself an indefinite murmur of interest. Her head to
one side, she drew the brush in slow, deliberate movements downward
underneath the long, thick strands of her hair. Mrs. Cressler watched
her attentively.

"Why don't you wear your hair that new way, Laura," she remarked,
"farther down on your neck? I see every one doing it now."

The house was very still. Outside the double windows they could hear
the faint murmuring click of the frozen snow. A radiator in the hallway
clanked and strangled for a moment, then fell quiet again.

"What a pretty room this is," said Laura. "I think I'll have to do our
guest room something like this--a sort of white and gold effect. My
hair? Oh, I don't know. Wearing it low that way makes it catch so on
the hooks of your collar, and, besides, I was afraid it would make my
head look so flat."

There was a silence. Laura braided a long strand, with quick, regular
motions of both hands, and letting it fall o