“I want to tell you that I am disappointed in you—­dreadfully disappointed in you!” said the girl fiercely.

“What do you mean!” Constance rose in amazement.

“Why didn’t you insist on my father’s buying these things?  You ought to have insisted.  You pay us a large sum, and you had a right.  Instead, you have humiliated us—­because you are rich, and we are poor!  It was mean—­and purse-proud.”

“How dare you say such things?” cried Connie.  “You mustn’t come into my room at all, if you are going to behave like this.  You know very well I didn’t do it unkindly.  It is you who are unkind!  But of course it doesn’t matter.  You don’t understand.  You are only a child!” Her voice shook.

“I am not a child!” said Nora indignantly.  “And I believe I know a great deal more about money than you do—­because you have never been poor.  I have to keep all the accounts here, and make mother and Alice pay their debts.  Father, of course, is always too busy to think of such things.  Your money is dreadfully useful to us.  I wish it wasn’t.  But I wanted to do what was honest—­if you had only given me time.  Then you slipped out and did it!”

Constance stared in bewilderment.

“Are you the mistress in this house?” she said.

Nora nodded.  Her colour had all faded away, and her breath was coming quick.  “I practically am,” she said stoutly.

“At seventeen?” asked Connie, ironically.

Nora nodded again.

Connie turned away, and walked to the window.  She was enraged with Nora, whose attack upon her seemed quite inexplicable and incredible.  Then, all in a moment, a bitter forlornness overcame her.  Nora, standing by the table, and already pierced with remorse, saw her cousin’s large eyes fill with tears.  Connie sat down with her face averted.  But Nora—­trembling all over—­perceived that she was crying.  The next moment, the newcomer found Nora kneeling beside her, in the depths of humiliation and repentance.

“I am a beast!—­a horrid beast!  I always am.  Oh, please, please don’t cry!”

“You forget”—­said Connie, with difficulty—­“how I—­how I miss my mother!”

And she broke into a fit of weeping.  Nora, beside herself with self-disgust, held her cousin embraced, and tried to comfort her.  And presently, after an agitated half-hour, each girl seemed to herself to have found a friend.  Reserve had broken; they had poured out confidences to each other; and after the thunder and the shower came the rainbow of peace.

Before Nora departed, she looked respectfully at the beautiful dress of white satin, draped with black, which Annette had laid out upon the bed in readiness for the Vice-Chancellor’s party.

“It will suit you perfectly!” she said, still eager to make up.  Then—­eyeing Constance—­

“You know, of course, that you are good-looking?”

“I am not hideous—­I know that,” said Constance, laughing.  “You odd girl!”