No!  None of that!  She must get back to impersonal thoughts.  What was it she had selected as subject for consideration?  It had been lace.  What about lace?  Lace . . . ?  Her mind balked, openly rebellious.  She could not make it think of lace again.  She was in a panic, and cast about her for some strong defense . . . oh! just the thing . . . the new hat.

She would try on the new hat which had just come from New York.  She had been waiting for a leisurely moment, really to be able to put her attention on that.

She opened the gaily printed round pasteboard box, and took out the creation.  She put it on with care, low over her eyebrows, adjusting it carefully by feel, before she looked at herself to get the first impression.  Then, hand-glass in hand, she began to study it seriously from various angles.  When she was convinced that from every view-point her profile had the unlovely and inharmonious silhouette fashionable that summer, she drew a long breath of relief, and took it off gently, looking at it with pleasure.  Nothing gives one such self-confidence, she reflected, as the certainty of having the right sort of hat.  How much better “chic” was than beauty!

With the hat still in her hand, her very eyes on it, she saw there before her, as plainly as though in a crystal ball, Marise’s attitude as she had stood with Marsh that evening before at the far end of the garden.  Her body drawn towards his, the poise of her head, all of her listening intently while he talked . . . one could see how he was dominating her.  A man with such a personality as his, regularly hypnotic when he chose, and practised in handling women, he would be able to do anything he liked with an impressionable creature like Marise, who as a girl was always under the influence of something or other.  It was evident that he could put any idea he liked into Marise’s head just by looking at her hard enough.  She had seen him do it . . . helped him do it, for that matter!

And so Neale must have seen.  Anybody could!  And Neale was not raising a hand, nor so much as lifting an eyebrow, just letting things take their course.

What could that mean except that he would welcome . . .

Oh Heavens! her pulse was hammering again.  She sprang up and ran to the mirror.  Yes, the mirror showed a face that scared her; haggard and pinched with a fierce desire.

There were not only lines now, there was a hollow in the cheek . . . or was that a shadow?  It made her look a thousand years old.  Massage would do that no good!  And she had no faith in any of those “flesh-foods.”  Perhaps she was underweight.  The hideous strain and suspense of the last weeks had told on her.  Perhaps she would better omit those morning exercises for a time, in this intense heat.  Perhaps she would better take cream with her oatmeal again.  Or perhaps cream of wheat would be better than oatmeal.  How ghastly that made her look!  But perhaps it was only a shadow.  She could not summon courage enough to move and see.  Finally she took up her hand-mirror, framed in creamy ivory, with a carved jade bead hanging from it by a green silk cord.  She went to the window to get a better light on her face.  She examined it, holding her breath; and drew a long, long sigh of respite and relief.  It had been only a shadow!