“I know, my dear, but I have some common sense which has served me very well in its place.”  As Corinna spoke she got up and roamed restlessly about the room, because the sight of that passive figure, wrapped in wilted plum blossoms, made her feel as if she wanted to scream.  “You can’t help being a fool, Alice,” she said sternly, “and as long as you are a pretty one, I suppose men won’t mind.  But you must continue to be a pretty one, or it is all over with you.”

The face that Alice turned on her showed a curious mixture of humility over the criticism and satisfaction over the compliment.  “I know I’ve lost my looks dreadfully,” she replied, grasping the most important point first, “and, of course, I have been a fool about John.  If I hadn’t cared so much, things might have been different.”

Corinna stopped her impatient moving about and looked down on her.  “I didn’t mean that kind of fool,” she retorted; but just what kind of fool she had meant, she thought it indiscreet to explain.

Suddenly, with a dash of nervous energy which appeared to run like a stimulant through her veins, Alice straightened herself and lifted her head.  “It is easy for you to say that,” she rejoined, “but you have never been loved to desperation and then deserted.”

“No,” responded Corinna, with the ripe judgment that is the fruit of bitter experience, “but, if I were ever loved to desperation, I should expect to be.  Desperation does things like that.”

“You couldn’t bear it any better than I can.  No woman could.”

“Perhaps not.”  Though Corinna’s voice was flippant, there was a stern expression on her beautiful face—­the expression that Artemis might have worn when she surveyed Aphrodite.  “But I should never have been deserted.  I should have taken good care to prevent it.”

“I took care too,” retorted Alice, with passion, “but I couldn’t prevent it.”

“Your measures were wrong.  It is always safer to be on the side of the active rather than the passive verb.”

With a careless movement, Corinna picked up her beaded bag, which she had laid on the table, and turned to adjust her veil before the mirror.  “If you will let me manage your life for a little while,” she observed, with an appreciative glance at the daring angle of the red hat, “I may be able to do something with it, for I am a practical person as well as a capable manager.  Father calls me, you know, the repairer of destinies.”

“If I thought it would do any good, I’d go to the ball with you,” said Alice eagerly, while a delicate colour stained the wan pallor of her face.

“Do you really think,” asked Corinna brightly, “that John, able politician though he is, is worth all that trouble?”

“Oh, it isn’t just John,” moaned Alice; “it is everything.”

“Well, if I am going to repair your destiny, I must do it in my own practical way.  For a time at least we will let sentiment go and get down to facts.  As long as you haven’t much sense, it is necessary for you to make yourself as pretty as possible, for only intelligent women can afford to take liberties with their appearances.  The first step must be to buy a hat that is full of hope as soon as you can.  Oh, I don’t mean anything jaunty or frivolous; but it must be a hat that can look the world in the face.”