"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Let me see. I shall be young—young enough—for ten years more, and with the proper appliances beautiful for twenty."
His laugh was reluctant; the mention of the proper appliances jarred on him a little. She saw it in an instant and answered with a defiance: "I rouge now when I want it."
"Are you rouged to-day?"
"You can look and see."
"I can look, but perhaps I can't see."
She rubbed her cheek hard with her hand and then showed him the palm.
"I hope that's proof," he said, "but these contrivances are so cunning now-a-days."
"Men think them even more cunning than they are," laughed Ora. "And what have you done?" she went on. "What's your life been?"
"The deplorably usual—preparatory school, public school, Oxford, Bar. I'm a full-blown specimen of the ordinary Englishman of the professional classes."