"But simple things suit me, mother."
"I know they do, dear; you look sweet in anything; but at a big dance like this, where there'll be so many smart people, they might think—well, I don't know, dear, but it is very quiet, isn't it?"
The moment before April had been happy and excited, and now she was crushed and humiliated. She sat down on the edge of a chair, gazing with pathetic pity at her brilliant shoes.
"You've spoilt it all," she said.
"No, dear. I'm sure you'll be thankful to me when you get there. Now, why don't you run upstairs and put on that nice mauve frock of yours?"
April shook her shoulders.
"I don't like mauve."
"Well then, dear, there's the green and yellow; you always look nice in that."
It was a bright affair that her mother had seen at a sale in Brixton and bought at once because it was so cheap. It had never really suited April, whose delicate features needed a simple setting; but her mother did not like to feel that she had made a mistake, and having persuaded herself that the green and yellow was the right colour, and matched her daughter's eyes, had insisted on April's wearing it as often as possible.