Stella was thankful this time, with all her heart, that she could work over Laurel, for when she had anything to conceal it was always easier to talk to the funny little perceiving creature, if she could keep her eyes down close on some sort of fine careful job, like cutting a bit of cuticle, or filing a nail to just the proper arch.

When the manicuring was well under way, Stella inquired, “How is your father?”

She always asked that question before Laurel had been back many hours.

Laurel always replied, “He’s all right.”

“Didn’t seem different in any way?”

“No.”

“Didn’t refer to me, I suppose?”

“No.”

Laurel wished he would refer to her sometime, so she might tell her he had.

“Goodness,” exclaimed Stella, “I should think he’d ask after my health once in a while!”

Laurel was silent.

Stella applied the blunt end of a steel file to the half-moon just appearing out of the pink flesh of Laurel’s thumb.

“I should think he’d have some interest in my welfare.”

Still Laurel was silent.

“I never did anything to have him treat me as if I was dead.”

“You hurt, Mother.”

Stella laid down the file. But it was somewhere inside where Stella was really hurting Laurel. Laurel always suffered when her mother talked like that about her father.

“You’d think from the way he acts such a thing as a marriage ceremony had never taken place between him and me.”

“Mother,” Laurel interrupted—she must change the subject somehow—“I’ve learned to use a shotgun.”

“I hope, Laurel,” Stella went right on, “you’ll have more respect for the promises you make, than your father seems to.”

Laurel made another desperate attempt.

“Oh, Mother,” she exclaimed brightly, “I saw that lovely lady again in New York.”

She was successful this time.

“What lovely lady?” asked Stella.

Laurel had been too busy so far answering her mother’s questions as to what restaurants and theaters she had visited in New York to tell her about Mrs. Morrison.

“The lovely lady who gave me my silver pencil.”

“Oh, yes, you met her at afternoon tea last year. I remember. You said she had on black broadcloth with broad-tail trimming then. What did she wear this time?”

“She isn’t wearing black at all this year, but palish colors when she dresses up that you think are white until you see her up against a white wall or something, and then you see they aren’t. They’re usually pale yellow, or faint blue. She never wears pink.”

“Good gracious, how many different rigs did you see this person in?”

“Oh, lots!”