“Don’t be clever, Esther!  I mean socially, of course.  Jane, run up to my dresser and look in the second drawer on the right hand side and bring down my small photo case.  I think I have a photo somewhere, not a very good one, but enough to show how homely he was....  Amy, aren’t you going to eat any breakfast this morning?”

Aunt Amy, who had been following her niece’s unusual flow of talk with fascinated attention, returned with a start to her untasted egg.  Esther tried to eat some toast and choked.  In spite of all her resolutions she felt coldly and bitterly angry.  That her mother should dare to gossip about him like that!  That she should call him “ugly,” that she should speak with that air of almost insolent proprietorship of those wonderful early years long, long before she, Esther, had come into his life at all, it was unendurable!

Do not smile, sophisticated young person.  When you are in love you will know, only too well, this jealousy of youless years; this tenderness for photos and trifling remembrances of the youth of the one you love.  You will envy his very mother, who, presumably, knew him fairly well in the nursery, and that first dreadful picture of him in plaid dress and plastered hair will seem a sacred relic.

In the meantime you may take my word for it, and try to understand how Esther felt as she bent, perforce, over the photo of a dark-browed lad whose very expression was in itself a valid protest against photography.

“Ugly, wasn’t he?” asked Mrs. Coombe.

“Very,” said Esther.

“Perfectly fierce,” said Jane, peering over her shoulder.  “Really fierce, I mean, not slang.  He looks as if he would love to bite somebody.”

“The photographer, probably.”

Esther shrugged her shoulders and laid the photo carelessly upon the table.  So careless was she, in fact, that a sharp “Look out!” from Jane did not prevent a sudden jerk of her elbow upsetting her steaming cup of coffee right over the pictured face.

With an angry exclamation, Mary sprang forward to rescue her property but Esther had already picked it up and was endeavouring to repair the damage with her table napkin.

“Oh, do take care!” said Mary irritably.  “Don’t rub so hard—­you’ll rub all the film off—­there!  What did I tell you?”

“Dear me! who would ever have dreamed it would rub off that easily?” Esther surveyed the crumpled bits of photo with convincing dismay.

“Any one, with sense.  It’s ruined—­how utterly stupid of you, Esther.”  Mary’s voice quivered with anger.  “You provoking thing!  I believe you did it on purpose.”

The cold stare from the girl’s eyes stopped her, but she added fretfully, “You are always doing things to annoy me.  I can’t think why, I’m sure.”

“She was trying to dry it,” declared Jane, belligerently.  “She didn’t mean to hurt the old photo.  Did you, darling?”

“I can hardly see what my motive could have been,” said Esther politely, rising from the table.  She had deliberately tried to destroy the photograph and was exultantly glad that she had succeeded, yet, so quickly does the actress instinct develop under the spur of necessity, that her face and manner showed only amused tolerance of such a foolish suspicion.