The woman stood and looked in upon them.  She wore a pink cloth gown, a flower-garlanded hat, a white coaching veil, beneath which her features were indistinguishable.  She brought with her a waft of strong perfume.  Her figure was a living suggestion of the struggle between maturity and the corsetiere.  Before she spoke she laughed—­not altogether pleasantly.

“You here again!” she exclaimed to Mannering.  “Upon my word!  I’m not a ghost!  Hester, go and see about some tea, and a brandy and soda.  Billy Foa brought me up on his motor, and I’m half choked with dust.”

The girl rose obediently and quitted the room.  The woman untwisted her veil, drew out the pins from her hat, and threw both upon the sofa.  Then she turned suddenly upon Mannering.

“Look here,” she said, “the last twice you’ve been here you seem to have carefully chosen times when I am out.  I don’t understand it.  It can’t be that you want to see that chit of a girl of mine.  Why don’t you come when I ask you?  Why do you act as though I were something to be avoided?”

Mannering rose to his feet.

“I came to-day without knowing where you were,” he answered, “but I will admit that I wished to see Hester.”

“What for?”

“I have asked her to come and live at Blakely with my niece and myself.  She is an excellent typist, and I require a secretary.”

The woman looked at him angrily.  Without her veil she displayed features not in themselves unattractive, but a complexion somewhat impaired by the use of cosmetics.  The powder upon her cheeks was even then visible.

“What about me?” she asked, sharply.

Mannering looked her steadily in the face.

“I do not think,” he said, “that such a life would suit you.”

She was an angry woman, and she did not become angry gracefully.

“You mean that I’m not good enough for you and your friends in the country.  That’s what you mean, isn’t it?  And I should like to know, if I’m not, whose fault it is.  Tell me that, will you?”

Mannering flinched, though almost imperceptibly.

“I meant simply what I said,” he said.  “Blakely would not suit you at all.  We have few friends there, and our simple life would not attract you in the slightest.  With Hester it is different.  She would have her work, in which she takes some interest, and I believe the change would be in every way good for her.”

“Well, she shan’t come,” the woman said, throwing herself into a chair, and regarding him insolently.  “I’m not going to live all alone—­and be talked about.  Don’t stare at me like that, Lawrence.  I’m the child’s mother, am I not?”

“It is because you are her mother,” he said, quietly, “that I thought you might be glad to find a suitable home for her.”

“What’s good enough for me ought to be good enough for her,” she answered, doggedly.