‘Will you come?’ she asked, impatient that anybody should be in a good humour when she was not.

‘I’ll come now, if you’ll let me,’ he answered readily.

‘No.  Come to dinner at half-past eight.’  She waited a moment and then went on.  ’I’ve sent down word that I’m not at home for any one, and I don’t like to make you the only exception.’

‘Oh, I see,’ answered Logotheti’s voice.  ’But I’ve always wanted to be the only exception.  I say, does half-past eight mean a quarter past nine?’

‘No.  It means a quarter past eight, if you like.  Good-bye!’

She cut off the communication abruptly, being a little afraid that if she let him go on chattering any longer she might yield and allow him to come at once.  In her solitude she was intensely bored by her own bad temper, and was nearer to making him the ‘only exception’ than she had often been of late.  She said to herself that he always amused her, but in her heart she was conscious that he was the only man in the world who knew how to flatter her back into a good temper, and would take the trouble to do so.  It was better than nothing to look forward to a pleasant evening, and she went back to her novel and her cup of tea already half reconciled with life.

It rained almost without stopping.  At times it poured, which really does not happen often in much-abused London; but even heavy rain is not so depressing in spring as it is in winter, and when the Primadonna raised her eyes from her book and looked out of the big window, she was not thinking of the dreariness outside but of what she should wear in the evening.  To tell the truth, she did not often trouble herself much about that matter when she was not going to sing, and all singers and actresses who habitually play ‘costume parts’ are conscious of looking upon stage-dressing and ordinary dressing from totally different points of view.  By far the larger number of them have their stage clothes made by a theatrical tailor, and only an occasional eccentric celebrity goes to Worth or Doucet to be dressed for a ‘Juliet,’ a ‘Tosca,’ or a ‘Dona Sol.’

Margaret looked at the rain and decided that Logotheti should not find her in a tea-gown, not because it would look too intimate, but because tea-gowns suggest weariness, the state of being misunderstood, and a craving for sympathy.  A woman who is going to surrender to fate puts on a tea-gown, but a well-fitting body indicates strength of character and virtuous firmness.

I remember a smart elderly Frenchwoman who always bestowed unusual care on every detail of her dress, visible and invisible, before going to church.  Her niece was in the room one Sunday while she was dressing for church, and asked why she took so much trouble.

‘My dear,’ was the answer, ’Satan is everywhere, and one can never know what may happen.’