ong from her forehead. Laura saw
her doing it now.

"I like your face," was her comment.

"It's more than I do," said Nina. "But I like my hands."

She began washing them with energy, as if thus dismissing an unpleasant
subject. She could admire their fine flexible play under the water; do
what she would with them her hands at least were feminine. But they
brought her up sharp with the sight of the little scar, white on her
wrist, reminding her of Owen. She was aware of the beast in her blood
that crouched, ready to fall upon the innocent Laura.

At the other end of the room, by the wardrobe, Laura, in her innocence,
was babbling about Owen.

"He's growing frightfully extravagant," she said. "He got fifteen pounds
for an article the other day, and what do you think he did with it? Look
there!"

She had taken a gown, a little mouse-coloured velvet gown, from the
wardrobe and laid it on the bed for Nina to admire.

"He went and spent it, every bit of it, on that. He said he thought I
should look nice in it. Wasn't it clever of him to know? And who ever
would have thought that he'd have cared?"

Nina looked at the gown and remembered the years when Laura had gone
shabby.

"He cares so much," said Laura, "that I have to put it on every
evening."

"Put it on now," said Nina.

"Shall I?" She was longing to. "No, I don't think I will."

"You must," said Nina.

Laura put it on, baring her white neck and shoulders, and turned for
Nina to "fasten her up the back."

Nina had a vision of Prothero standing over the little thing, his long
deft hands trembling as he performed this office.

The Kiddy, divinely unconscious, babbled on of Owen and the wonderful
gown.

"Conceive," she said, "the darling going out all by himself to get it!
How he knew one gown from another--how he knew the shops--what hand
guided him--I can't think. It must have been his guardian angel."

"Or yours."

"Yes--when you think of the horrors he might have got."

Laura had stroked the velvet to smoothness about her waist, and now she
was pulling up a fold of lace above her breasts. As she did this she
looked at her own image in the glass and smiled softly, unaware. Nina
saw then that her breasts were slightly and delicately rounded; she
recognized the work of life, shaping Laura's womanhood; it was the last
touch of the passion that had made her body the sign and symbol of its
perfection. Her own breasts heaved as the wild fang pierced