to let
her mother in.

"Yes--I am well," she echoed.

For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her
daughter to enter uninvited.

"I have a note for you," she announced. "Mr. Sidwell's man Alec just
brought it. He says there's to be an answer."

But still the girl did not move. It was an unpropitious time to mention
the club-man's name. The fascination of such as he fades at early
morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light. Just now the
thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that
wandered in at the window.

"Very well," said Florence, at last. "Leave it, please, and tell Alec to
wait. I'll be down directly."

In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in
under the door, and the bearer's footsteps tapped back into silence.

Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up
the note. Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its
polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her
tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair. It was not a happy
face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it
really was. The great brown eyes inspected it critically and
relentlessly.

"Florence Baker," she said to the face in the mirror, "you are getting
to be old and haggard." A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her
suddenly. "A few years more, and you will not be even--good-looking."

She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up
the envelope and tore it open.

"Miss Baker," ran the note, "there is to be an informal little
gathering--music, dancing, and a few things cool--at the Country Club
this evening. You already know most of the people who will be there. May
I call for you?--Sidwell."

Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover.
There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she
read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in
story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until
it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her
answer to that evening's invitation lay the choice of her future life.
She was at the turning of the ways--a turning that admitted of no
reconsideration. Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the
trails of the natural and the artificial. For a time they kept side by
side; but in the distance th