“Foolish child! foolish child!” was the parrot-phrase flung in answer.  The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the words.

The girl laughed again.  The joy of a caged bird was in her voice.  Her eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a moment, as though to hide their secret.  When they opened, the mist of a dream had passed across them.

Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name of common sense.  She did not listen.  She was free in her prison of passion.  Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her.  She had called on memory to remake him.  She had sent her soul to search for him, and it had brought him back.  His kiss burned again upon her mouth.  Her eyelids were warm with his breath.

Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery.  This young man might be rich.  If so, marriage should be thought of.  Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning.  The arrows of craft shot by her.  She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled.

Suddenly she felt the need to speak.  The wordy silence troubled her.  “Mother, Mother,” she cried, “why does he love me so much?  I know why I love him.  I love him because he is like what love himself should be.  But what does he see in me?  I am not worthy of him.  And yet—­why, I cannot tell—­though I feel so much beneath him, I don’t feel humble.  I feel proud, terribly proud.  Mother, did you love my father as I love Prince Charming?”

The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain.  Sybil rushed to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her.  “Forgive me, Mother.  I know it pains you to talk about our father.  But it only pains you because you loved him so much.  Don’t look so sad.  I am as happy to-day as you were twenty years ago.  Ah! let me be happy for ever!”

“My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love.  Besides, what do you know of this young man?  You don’t even know his name.  The whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you should have shown more consideration.  However, as I said before, if he is rich . . .”

“Ah!  Mother, Mother, let me be happy!”

Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a stage-player, clasped her in her arms.  At this moment, the door opened and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room.  He was thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat clumsy in movement.  He was not so finely bred as his sister.  One would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between them.  Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile.  She mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience.  She felt sure that the tableau was interesting.