Hading's coiffure.

The two girls went downstairs together. Beryl's arm thrust through her
friend's. Gay's horse stood at the side entrance, facing the
staircase. She instinctively quickened her pace as they reached the
lounge door, but, before she could pass, it opened, and Mrs. Hallett
came out.

"Oh, I was just coming to look for you girls. Mrs. Scott is in from
Umvuma, Gay, and dying to see you."

Gay gave an inward groan. Mrs. Scott was an old friend of her dead
mother's, and about the only woman in the world for whom the girl would
have entered the lounge at that moment. As it was, she followed
Beryl's mother swiftfoot through the swing door, very upright and smart
in her glossy tan riding-boots, knee-breeches, and graceful long coat
of soft tan linen. In the matter of riding-kit, Gay always went nap.
A ball or day gown she might wear until it fell off her back, but when
it came to habits, she considered nothing too good or too recent for
her.

For a moment, Marice Hading looked away from the man who sat opposite,
amusing her with apt and cynical reflections on life in Rhodesia, and
shot a soft, dark glance at the straight back of the girl in
riding-kit. Her cleverly appraising eye took in, with the
instantaneousness of photography, every detail of Gay's get-up, and her
brain acknowledged that she had seldom seen a better one either in
Central Park or Rotten Row. But no expression of any such opinion
showed in her weary, disdainful eyes or found its way to her lips, for
in the art of using language to conceal her thoughts, Marice Hading had
few rivals. What she said to Druro, whose glance had also wandered
that way, was:

"One cannot help noticing what a hard-riding, healthy-looking crowd the
women of this country are."

The words sounded like a simple, frank statement; but somehow they
robbed Gay of some of the perfection of her young and charming
ensemble, and made her one of a crowd in which her distinction was
lost. Druro felt this vaguely without being able to tell exactly how
it happened. He knew nothing of the subtleties of a woman's mind. He
had thought that Gay looked rather splendidly young and sweet, and,
because of it, a fresh pang shot through him at the remembrance of her
scornful dismissal of him the night before. But, with Mrs. Hading's
words, the impression passed, and he got a quick vision of Gay as just
an ordinary girl who had been extremely rude to him. This helped him