Minutes passed; then her mother’s hesitating steps approached the door.

“Florence,” called a voice.  “Florence, are you well?”

The dishevelled brown head lifted, but the girl made no motion to let her mother in.

“Yes—­I am well,” she echoed.

For a moment Mrs. Baker hesitated, but she was too much in awe of her daughter to enter uninvited.

“I have a note for you,” she announced.  “Mr. Sidwell’s man Alec just brought it.  He says there’s to be an answer.”

But still the girl did not move.  It was an unpropitious time to mention the club-man’s name.  The fascination of such as he fades at early morning; it demands semi-darkness or artificial light.  Just now the thought of him was distinctly depressing, like the sultry breeze that wandered in at the window.

“Very well,” said Florence, at last.  “Leave it, please, and tell Alec to wait.  I’ll be down directly.”

In response, an envelope with a monogram in the corner was slipped in under the door, and the bearer’s footsteps tapped back into silence.

Slowly the girl crawled from her bed, but she did not at once take up the note.  Instead, she walked over to the dresser, and, leaning on its polished top, gazed into the mirror at the reflection of her tear-stained face, with its mass of disarranged hair.  It was not a happy face that she saw; and just at this moment it looked much older than it really was.  The great brown eyes inspected it critically and relentlessly.

“Florence Baker,” she said to the face in the mirror, “you are getting to be old and haggard.”  A prophetic glimpse of the future came to her suddenly.  “A few years more, and you will not be even—­good-looking.”

She stood a moment longer, then, walking over to the door, she picked up the envelope and tore it open.

“Miss Baker,” ran the note, “there is to be an informal little gathering—­music, dancing, and a few things cool—­at the Country Club this evening.  You already know most of the people who will be there.  May I call for you?—­Sidwell.”

Florence read the missive slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover.  There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she read between the lines of those few brief sentences.  It is only in story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until it arrives.  As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her answer to that evening’s invitation lay the choice of her future life.  She was at the turning of the ways—­a turning that admitted of no reconsideration.  Dividing at her feet, each equally free, were the trails of the natural and the artificial.  For a time they kept side by side; but in the distance they were as separate as the two ends of the earth.  By no possibility could both be followed.  She must choose between them, and abide by her decision for good or for ill.