Still gazing, Laurel inquired a moment later, “Don’t you ever use rouge, or an eyebrow pencil?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Why do you ask, Laurel?”

“No reason. I was only wondering.” Then after a pause Laurel added, “I think you’d be lovely with pink cheeks.”

“I would be nicer, wouldn’t I?” she agreed, and she stuck in the last hairpin, got up, gathered together a few soft muslin things from a drawer near by (she put on clean clothes every morning: her laundry bill must be terrific), and, wrapped in a lemon-colored China-silk kimono, passed into one of the little twin bathrooms adjoining, and closed the door.

Laurel heard the click of enamel handles being turned, the violent gush of a stream of water in the marble shower-bath, and a second or two later, or so it seemed, Mrs. Morrison reappeared, as fresh as a pond-lily in her crisp lingerie.

Laurel inquired of her, “If you think you’d be nicer with pink cheeks, then why don’t you make them pink?”

“Oh, it takes such a lot of time!” laughed Mrs. Morrison. “And then, besides,” she added, “I would always be getting them spoiled. I like to be outdoors so much, digging in the garden, riding horseback, romping with the boys in all sorts of weather. If I did use rouge, Laurel,” she went on more seriously, “and an eyebrow pencil, as you suggested, I should want to do it exquisitely, like an artist, so that no one’s sense of beauty could possibly be offended.”

“Offended?”

“Yes. To some people paint and powder on the human face is distasteful.”

“Is it?”

“Like paint and powder on the petals of a flower, I suppose.”

“Oh!”

There was a long pause. Laurel broke it at last.

“Is that why you haven’t a string of pearls?”

“Is what why, Laurel?”

“Because pearls on your neck would be to some people like pearls on flowers?”

“Oh, no,” Helen Morrison replied, managing not even to smile. “I haven’t a string of pearls because they’re so expensive.”

“Imitation pearls aren’t very expensive.”

“Oh, imitation!”

Laurel considered. Her mother had often told her that pearls and imitation diamond bar-pin would pass for the genuine articles anywhere.

“They look just like the real ones,” she told Mrs. Morrison.

“Oh, no, Laurel, not to a person who knows pearls. They lack inner beauty, just as a wax figure lacks soul. To the really discerning they’re as lifeless and unbeautiful as that.” Then, with a sudden happy inspiration, as she thought, Helen Morrison added, “Your mother has trimmed several of your pretty dresses with narrow filet lace, but there isn’t an inch of imitation filet.”