Like the others of her class she left the care of her mind to chance.  As she had a naturally good mind and a bird-like instinct for flitting everywhere, picking out the food from the chaff, she made an excellent showing even in the company of serious people.  But that was accident.  Her person was her real care.  To her luxurious, sensuous nature every kind of pleasurable physical sensation made keen appeal, and she strove in every way to make it keener.  She took the greatest care of her health, because health meant beauty and every nerve and organ in condition to enjoy to its uttermost capacity.

Because of this care it was often full three hours and half between the entrance of Selina and her own exit, dressed and ready for the day.  And those three hours and a half were the happiest of her day usually, because they were full of those physical sensations in which she most delighted.  Her first move, after Selina had awakened her, was to spend half an hour in “getting the yawns out.”  She had learned this interesting, pleasant and amusing trick from a baby in a house where she had once spent a week.  She would extend herself at full length in the bed, and then slowly stretch each separate muscle of arm and leg, of foot and hand, of neck and shoulders and waist.  This stretching process was accompanied by a series of prolonged, profound, luxurious yawns.

The yawning exercise completed, she rose and took before a long mirror a series of other exercises, some to strengthen her waist, others to keep her back straight and supple, others to make firm the contour of her face and throat.  A half-hour of this, then came her bath.  This was no hurried plunge, drying and away, but a long and elaborate function at which Selina assisted.  There had to be water of three temperatures; a dozen different kinds of brushes, soaps, towels and other apparatus participated.  When it was finished Margaret’s skin glowed and shone, was soft and smooth and exhaled a delicious odor of lilacs.  During the exercises Selina had been getting ready the clothes for the day—­everything fresh throughout, and everything delicately redolent of the same essence of lilacs with which Selina had rubbed her from hair to tips of fingers and feet.  The clothes were put on slowly, for Margaret delighted in the feeling of soft silks and laces being drawn over her skin.  She let Selina do every possible bit of work, and gave herself up wholly to the joy of being cared for.

“There isn’t any real reason why I shouldn’t be doing this for you, instead of your doing it for me—­is there, Selina?” mused she aloud.

“Goodness gracious, Miss Rita!” exclaimed Selina, horrified.  “I wouldn’t have it done for anything.  I was brought up to be retiring about dressing.  It was my mother’s dying boast that no man, nor no woman, had ever seen her, a grown woman, except fully dressed.”

“Really?” said Margaret absently.  She stood up, surveyed herself in the triple mirror—­back, front, sides.  “So many women never look at themselves in the back,” observed she, “or know how their skirts hang about the feet.  I believe in dressing for all points of view.”