that she was wearing pince-nez
that made her an absolutely different being. This was the third time in
her life that Judy was coming down to the West. Once it had been as a
very young girl, full of dreams and questionings; once it had been as a
woman who had already learned something of proportion; now it was as
this elderly and alien person whom her friends could not connect with
the Judith they had known. Not till they saw the beam of her eyes, as
profound but somehow less sad than the eyes of the girl had been, did
they feel it was the same Judy. The exaggerated colour on her face, the
white powder and overdone rouge, embarrassed them both. Judy saw it and
laughed, and when they were in the waggonnette and driving along the
road she said: "You're thinking how horribly I'm made up! I can't help
it. I began it and I found I couldn't leave off, and that's the truth.
And of course my eye for effect has got out. But I don't think I'm
generally as bad as this. It comes of having done myself up in the
train."

"But, Judy--why?" asked Georgie. She was very shocked, for in those days
only actresses and women no better than they should be made up their
faces.

"Because I began it so as to keep looking young as long as I could, and
now I no longer care about keeping young-looking I can't drop it. That's
the worst of lots of habits which one starts for some one reason. The
reason for it dies and the habit doesn't. I know I overdo it, but it's
no good my telling myself so. And it doesn't matter much, after all."

"No," agreed Georgie, brightening; "after all, one loves ones friends
just as much if they have mottled skins or a red nose in a cold wind or
a shiny forehead, so why shouldn't one love them just as much when they
have too much pink and white on? It looks much nicer than too little."

They both laughed and felt more like the Georgie and Judy of old
days--more so than they were to again. As the days went on Georgie, whom
marriage had taken completely away from the old artistic set, found
herself feeling that after all she was a married woman and Judy was
still only Miss Parminter.... Judy, scenting this, told her flippantly
that a miss was as good as a mother, and Georgie laughed, but warned her
to remember the children were in the room.... Judy was inclined to be
hurt by the needless reminder, and, as she considered it foolish to be
hurt and still more foolish to show it, she went out.

She found Ishmael reading in