“I wouldn’t make you fashionable for the world!” cried Betty, with a mouthful of pins, laying down masterly folds of lace and chiffon the while over the white satin with which Marcella had provided her.  “What was it Worth said to me the other day?—­Ce qu’on porte, Mademoiselle?  O pas grand’chose!—­presque pas de corsage, et pas du tout de manches!’—­No, that kind of thing wouldn’t suit you.  But distinguished you shall be, if I sit up all night to think it out!”

In the end Betty was satisfied, and could hardly be prevented from hugging Marcella there and then, out of sheer delight in her own handiwork, when at last the party emerged from the cloak-room into the Mastertons’ crowded hall.  Marcella too felt pleasure in the reflections of herself as they passed up the lavishly bemirrored staircase.  The chatter about dress in which she had been living for some days had amused and distracted her; for there were great feminine potentialities in her; though for eighteen months she had scarcely given what she wore a thought, and in her pre-nursing days had been wont to waver between a kind of proud neglect, which implied the secret consciousness of beauty, and an occasional passionate desire to look well.  So that she played her part to-night very fairly; pinched Betty’s arm to silence the elf’s tongue; and held herself up as she was told, that Betty’s handiwork might look its best.  But inwardly the girl’s mood was very tired and flat.  She was pining for her work; pining even for Minta Hurd’s peevish look, and the children to whom she was so easily an earthly providence.

In spite of the gradual emptying of London, Lady Masterton’s rooms were very full.  Marcella found acquaintances.  Many of the people whom she had met at Mrs. Lane’s, the two Cabinet Ministers of the House of Commons dinner, Mr. Lane himself—­all were glad or eager to recall themselves to her as she stood by Lady Winterbourne, or made her way half absently through the press.  She talked, without shyness—­she had never been shy, and was perhaps nearer now to knowing what it might mean than she had been as a schoolgirl—­but without heart; her black eye wandering meanwhile, as though in quest.  There was a gay sprinkling of uniforms in the crowd, for the Speaker was holding a levee, and as it grew late his guests began to set towards Lady Masterton.  Betty, who had been turning up her nose at the men she had so far smiled upon, all of whom she declared were either bald or seventy, was a little propitiated by the uniforms; otherwise, she pronounced the party very dull.

“Well, upon my word!” she cried suddenly, in a tone that made Marcella turn upon her.  The child was looking very red and very upright—­was using her fan with great vehemence, and Frank Leven was humbly holding out his hand to her.

“I don’t like being startled,” said Betty, pettishly.  “Yes, you did startle me—­you did—­you did!  And then you begin to contradict before I’ve said a word!  I’m sure you’ve been contradicting all the way upstairs—­and why don’t you say ‘How do you do?’ to Miss Boyce?”